


All I Know Are Sad Songs

by BlackHolesandUnicorns



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Addiction, Age Difference, Apocalyptic Scenario, Child Poverty, Drug Use, Ectobiological Incest, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Karkat is seventeen and Dave is in his late thirties and that is dealt with very unflinchingly, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, The Foster System, Underage Prostitution, oh god guess I gotta redo these huh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:53:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18511522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackHolesandUnicorns/pseuds/BlackHolesandUnicorns
Summary: The end of the world is bad enough on its own. But when you've been barely treading water for as long as you can remember, when your whole ass life has seemed to take place through a pane of frosted glass, when you've just fucked up the only damn thing that ever seemed good or real in your entire existence, then... well. End of the world might just make a guy think it's time to take a plunge and let oblivion do its worst. Gotta be better than this, right?Unless the most unexpected person imaginable catches you before you hit the ground.Hi, I'm Dave and this is the story of how I found hope in the wilderness because a cosmic semisentience took pity on me or I guess had plans for me or something. Unclear at this point. anyway here's wonderwall.





	1. I Took a Bill in Ibiza

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published May 2016 to Dec 2018. Repost of deleted fic, same author + different account. Not edited from original posting.
> 
> Hi, this is AIKASS. I have been working on it for a very, very long time. It deals with heavy subject matter pretty unflinchingly, so if you have triggers, please see the tags for warnings. However, this fic is not about angst or misery or hopelessness, despite how it may seem. This fic is about hope, about growth, about learning, and about healing. It may seem hard to believe that a fic about Alpha Dave and Alpha Rose could have a happy ending. We all know how it ends for them, after all. But that's kind of the point of this story. The end comes for everyone. It's how we live before it that matters.
> 
> I should probably edit it as I go, because it's old. I won't, though. This is more or less an unedited reupload of the version I removed. I will put 'new' chapters up when I have the energy for it -- it's shockingly hard to go through the txt doc AO3 sends you when you delete an account. Maybe you can use this as a chance to revisit, or you can just ignore it until I'm caught up and posting new chapters, of which there still are some.

I'm sitting in a bathroom stall, pants around my ankles, and I'm staring down at a postage stamp that could totally fucking blow my mind.

The entire bathroom is fucking vibrating. I can hear the bass in my bones, rocking my toilet, making my brain rattle around in my skull. In the stall next to me, some skirt is begging for dick in Catalan. I can barely understand her, but she seems like she's having a pretty good time. She's having a better time than me.

I close my eyes. Roll my head back on my shoulders. I find the line of the bass thrumming through the walls, rocking the club down to its foundations. Sometimes I can get lost in music, but I can't feel much of anything right now. I could blame the music. The DJ's an upstart. People like him because his beats are slick, but there's no soul in his music. Big bass drops, no substance.

The problem isn't the music. The problem is me.

" _Em fumi enlaire!_ " my neighbour cries. I know enough actual Catalan to think she's saying 'I'm smoke in the air.' I've watched enough porn from my hotel room to know that it's slang. Her voice has a wild joy to it that even fat bass drops and good sex can't get you. Especially not here, in a place like this. Where nobody is happy.

I know where she found it. I could find it, too.

I toy with the postage stamp as the music is building to some fever pitch out on the floor. Some fan had slipped it to me. Winked. Told me it was the best high he had on offer. Can't even get arrested for this shit, he'd said. Some genius in a lab cooked it up a week ago. There aren't even any laws for this stuff, yet. Not that anyone gets arrested for designer drugs on beachside Ibiza, the place where you go to get venereal diseases, hollow regret, and the comforting sense that you at least tried to forget your fucking misery.

"Here's to forgetting my fucking misery," I murmur. The couple beside me orgasm loudly, the bass drops hard, and I tuck the postage stamp under my tongue.

It takes about twenty seconds to hit.

My veins catch on fire and my heart starts thumping and after that it gets real foggy, but that's good. I'm whirling around on the dance floor and there are lights strobing around me. I think that maybe I've lost my shades somewhere but it doesn't seem to matter, because there's a topless woman clinging to me and we're screaming as yet another bassline drops. I think I'm doing a line of coke from between her tits, and she's got fingers entwined in my hair. Someone is calling my name while I fuck her up against a wall. I think we're still on the dance floor, because there are vivid rainbows of lights flashing around my head, and people are cheering and whooping. All the noise and sound and colour collides in my head. She feels so good. I can't come. I can't fucking come no matter how hard I go.

Someone pulls me off her. The blow feels like a splash of cold water in my face and I go down laughing. Some swarthy dude is in my face, screaming his lungs out, and just I can't stop laughing. "Ladies love me," I keep saying. "Ladies love me, bro, can't help it. Ladies love me!" The guy is weeping and it's funny, it's really funny. The guy needs to lighten up. Yeah, he's lost her, so what. So what? It's not my fault. What matters? Nothing matters.

We're all alone in the end.

Someone's shining a flashlight in my face and I throw up an arm, cause the light pierces right into my fucking cerebral cortex. Someone says my name, and I flash a grin and a finger-pistol. "You got him," I say, a routine I know by heart, and maybe someone sighs.

I'm face-first in the sand and the bass fades to a faint thudding boom as doors slam closed behind me. I roll on my back. The moon is full up above and I'm laughing, still laughing. Why not? Laughing is a whole lot less fucking pathetic than crying. Why cry? Doesn't change shit.

At this point, I think time gets away from me. Things fade in and out. The moon is in one place, and then I blink, and it's moved. I stare at it and it starts melting. Molten platinum turns to shimmering white streamers as it floats down to me, and I reach up to try and gather the gossamer threads between my fingers, except that when they touch me, they burn like hell and I might be screaming, at this point. I'm honestly not sure.

I blink and the pain is gone and the moon's moved again. My head is starting to hurt. I slowly, painfully sit up. I can feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.

When I have the presence of mind to think: _holy fuck, I can't believe nobody stole my fucking phone,_ I know that I'm starting to sobering up.

I look toward the door of the club. I bet I can get another of those postage stamps if I go inside. If the guy is still there, that is. I'm not sure how much time has passed. Probably a lot. It's got to be three in the morning. Maybe later. (Earlier?) I press a hand to my temple. I don't want to sober up. Even if there aren't more postage stamps in there, there's gotta be some other designer drug. Or we could go old school. Score some molly. LSD. Hell, just some retiree in a midlife crisis selling his fucking ephedrine.

My phone is buzzing again. I think that it might be my producer, so I check it. My stomach twists and I hate everything, I hate myself, I hate this world, and I hate Rose. I shove the phone back in my pocket. Head back into the club, into the roaring wild jungle of gyrating bodies, strobing lights, and people who love me even though they just threw me out into the sand a few hours ago. That's what my life is.

I find postage stamp guy easy enough. First was a favour; he makes me pay for this one. I hand him a wad of Benjamins and slam that thing under my tongue. No bullshit bathroom self-reflection, this time. I ask him if it's safe to take two. He laughs, says hell no. Sells me a second anyway. 

**

After a whole lot of stuff I don't remember at all -- like, not even a little, not even those flashes of light or sound that can come to you after a bad trip -- I find myself somewhere totally different. I'm at the boardwalk. I'm sitting high up on a railing, no idea how I got up here, and it's nighttime, and I'm not sure, but I think it might not be the same day. I think I may have gone so deep down postage stamp lane that I lost an entire day.

I'm okay with this. A day is chump change. I'm almost grateful.

I'm still high, and I know it, but after you're high enough for long enough, even a slightly lower high starts to feel like sobriety. I'm not sure how I got here, but I know that the water is deep and black and right beneath me.

Out of curiosity, I try to touch my nose and poke myself in the eye. Okay, cool. I have no coordination. So if I fall in, I'll probably drown.

I've had worse thoughts.

I could probably put my phone against my dick and get off, it's buzzing so fucking insistently. I fumble for it. Almost drop it into the Mediterranean. I laugh at that. Who cares? Who cares. I have 30 voicemails, 60 missed calls, and one message.

TT: Dave, god damn you, we need to talk. Call me, _please_.  


The thought of hearing her voice fills me with a moment of hope before I remember what happened, and then I almost do drop the phone off into the sea. I stare down at her message. I'm not calling her. I won't, I fucking refuse. She'll hear I'm high, she'll think less of me, and it's fucked up that I care so much about that. I do, though. Her thinking that I'm not a total piece of shit is the only thing in the world I've got.

TG: hey  


My thumb hovers over send. I shouldn't. Fuck knows, Rose deserves a lot better than my shit. Rose would be better off without me. And I'd be better off without me, too. The charm of my presence has hella worn off. I look down into the black water. Moonlight reflects back.

Then I shake my head and hit send.

Immediately, my phone rings. I just kind of hold it while it vibrates, making my hand kind of numb. My hand was already kind of numb. I realize that I'm wearing eurotrash raver clothes, and my nice lime green three piece suit is probably... somewhere. Who cares.

My ringtone finally stops. I really hate it, I decide. It's the theme song from my second movie, which I was really proud of, but now all I can think is how fucking clever I thought I was when I made it, when I made _all_ of them, and I hate it.

TT: Answer me, Dave.  
TG: nah  
TT: Where the hell are you? I called your hotel in Barcelona and they said you weren't there.  
TG: checked out early  
TT: They said you never checked in.  
TG: real early  


I can almost hear her growl in frustration. See the way her black-painted fingernails would glide through her hair, knotting as she takes a second to breathe and gather herself. I know Rose inside out, and I miss her. I miss...

I miss...

I miss something so intangible I'm not even sure what it is. A simpler time. A better me. A spark of life.

Hope.

That sounds closest.

TT: Do I even want to know where you are? What you've been doing? Did you ever even touch down in Spain?  
TT: You never showed up for the convention, no one knows where you are.  
TT: Foreign paparazzi are shooting pics of every tall white guy in the Mediterranean and saying it's you.  
TT: Some tabloids are buying the photos and running them. They're trying to decide which of them are actually false trails laid by you and if there's one of your stupid alternate reality games embedded into the whole thing.  
TT: They're ignoring that they're all just eurotrash ripping off your style and getting credit for it!

She's trying to bait me. Look at these posers ripping off your brand. Look at corporate America, trying to play a game when you took your football and went home. I get what she's doing. I just... don't have it in me to play.

TG: rose look can we just stop  
TT: ... stop what?  
TG: yeah no okay let's hella not do that  
TG: never once in your life have you ever been ignorant of a single thing  
TG: hell even when you dont know shit about dick you pretend that you do  
TG: haha you dont know shit about dick get it  
TT: Dave...  
TT: If this is about what happened, well, I want to talk about it. You deserve some explanations. And some apologies.  
TT: But I don't want to do all of that over text message. Can't you call me?  
TG: nah  
TT: Stop shutting me out.  
TG: nah  
TT: Dave, you're better than this!  


I feel something crack right about now. For just a second, I think that maybe I'm mad at her, but I'm really not and I know it. It's not her fucking fault. This has been happening in slow motion for a long, long time, and if the events of the past few days have sent me over the edge, what does that matter? It was always going to happen. There's something just wrong with me, some fundamental fucking flaw, and if Rose was part of what struck that shit at the wrong angle and made me go all to pieces, how is that her fault?

It's not her fault. It's not _anything's_ fault, not even the obvious. It's me. It's all just me.

TG: im not better than shit  
TG: you know what I am rose  
TG: im ironic hipster trash  
TG: ive made a career out of monetizing the emperors fucking new clothes  
TG: draping them all over his imperial majestys paunch  
TG: watching everybody applaud my genius tailoring  
TG: jokes on you assholes  
TG: dude was naked all along  
TG: hella jeff is nothing but the imperial shlong  
TG: wow i sure am glad i built this amazing career and have money and hotties and mansions and cars and clothes and none of it fucking matters because the world is going to end and what does it even matter?  
TG: no one is going to care that im gone  
TG: nothing matters  
TG: fucking nothing matters rose  
TG: especially not me  
TG: i love you ok  
TG: be good  
TG: find someone  
TG: you always were better at living than i was  
  


I see a flash of purple as Rose starts frantically replying to me. I know that she's realized what's happening, but she's back in her comfy parlour in New England and I'm high in Ibiza. She doesn't get a chance to make her appeal before my phone hits the waves and sinks beneath. In less than a second, its glow is gone. I can't tell if it broke that fast, or if it shot for the bottom like a rock.

I stand up.

There's a certain clarity in this moment, and I gaze down at the water and feel something that might be the beginnings of peace. I don't believe in the afterlife. I used to -- growing up in Texas, yo -- but Rose's existential nightmare beat it out of me a long, long time ago. I don't mind. The point is to make everything just stop, right? The lack of heaven or hell feels like a blessing.

I balance on the wall, unsteady. If I fall backwards, I'll crack my skull, probably. Oh well.

I take a breath.

"Hey! Hey, what the fuck!?"

I jump half out of my skin, the voice piercing through the fugue of my high, and that's when I fall backwards.

Inevitable as fuck -- I'd just predicted it -- but there's still a moment of utter panic as I pinwheel my arms and then fall backwards. I'm not scared that I'll die, but I can't help but start laughing as I realize what I'm thinking -- that it's going to make a fucking ugly headline when they snap pics of me with my brains spilling out and _that's_ my legacy plastered on the headlines. Drowning is so much more elegant.

I don't die. I don't die, because someone lurches into position and catches me before I hit the boardwalk.

I realize that my eyes are squeezed shut. I was scared to die, after all, flinching away from it like a pussy. It feels like a real loss and I kind of hate myself for that, I do. There are elbows hooked under my armpits. "Senor!" my savior is saying. I can't tell if it's Catalan or Spanish. The accent isn't right for either. "You okay? Fuck. Do I need to call la policia?" It's something middle eastern-ish. I can't place it.

I force myself to open my eyes, and for a second, I'm sure my little postage stamp has come back with a vengeance, because my rescuer is a fucking monster. It's got thick, rough looking grey skin and glowing, angry yellow sclera. Baleful red pupils peer down at me from over a mouthful of sharp looking teeth. The sight is terrifying and alien and familiar and comforting and I close my eyes with a squeak before that face can melt like the moon.

"Fucking wonderful, just what I -- look, I don't even fucking know if you speak english, but if I call police, I think we're both going to be in a lot of trouble, asshole. You're clearly fucked up and I've been busted once this month already on this corner. Do you want me calling them?"

My cash can grease foreign police on party island easy, but the monster is definitely not so lucky. My fogged brain pieces together the words. It's a hooker. The monster is a fucking hooker. Is this some sort of costume? Fetish shit?

When I open my eyes again, though, the monster is gone. My heart feels heavy and tears prick at the back of my eyes. Fuck, I'm so fucked up I'm crying over losing my monster. Then I manage to actually process the the upside down face staring down at me.

He's a nut-brown, elfin looking kid with a shock of dark hair and just the bare hint that he might be able to grow facial hair on his smooth skin. He has great big, dark brown eyes, and a button nose, and big full lips. I'm definitely right about him being some sort of Middle Eastern. What I don't expect is that he's about sixteen.

_Let's say eighteen._

A better version of me would try not to think too hard about why I thought that. But I'm pretty much the worst version of me right now. The version who landed in Barcelona and immediately got on a plane to Ibiza because I knew I could score and bury myself there. The version who threw my phone into the sea and was about to throw myself in, too. Because fuck Rose and her visions of a future we can help shape or save. Fuck everything except how empty I feel.

But I remember in this super clear flash, fucking that girl in the club. I couldn't get off, I remember. I look at him, and I pull away and force myself to my feet, swaying. Turn around, get a better look. He's wearing dark eyeliner, a mesh shirt, and short shorts. Yeah. Yeah, he's definitely a hooker. And he's really -- he's --

I want him.

It's this crazy feeling, because I haven't wanted anything except to bury myself since the day before I took off from JFK, but I really want him. "No police," I say, and a bit of tension goes out of him. He nods.

"Are you okay, jackass?" he asks, taking a step back. "What the fuck are you thinking, climbing up there? Jesus Christ."

"I was thinking I was going to kill myself," I admit.

His eyes go round and then shutter all at once. He holds his arms over his chest. "Sob stories don't get you discounts," he says.

"I wouldn't dream of underpaying a piece of ass as sweet as you," I say. Wrong thing to say, but it comes out anyway, because I'm scared of how much I need him and I'm a piece of fucking garbage.

His jaw bulges. "I don't fuck with wrecked out Americans, anyway," he says, turning. "Kill yourself for all I care, just do it away from here."

He's going to just walk out of my life and leave me where I was before. I scramble for something that will make him stay, and I notice the ribs showing through his shirt, the twigs of his arms and legs. Age of consent in Spain is thirteen, I remind myself, but I don't feel any less like a child-molesting piece of shit when I blurt: "A thousand US dollars."

The kid stops in his tracks. Then jerks his head. "Fine," he says. "I know a place."

"Great," I say, and I'm going to hell after all. The existential nightmare Rose put in my head is going to make hell a real place, just for me. I'll get what I want from him and then, after that, then I'll throw myself to the sharks. A better ending. "Do you have the date?"

He shoots me a look. "Fucking weirdo," he spits. He shakes his head. "November 14th. 2011."

Three days since the world ended.

Okay. Cool.

  



	2. To Show Avicii I Was Cool

  


I'm imagining a run down, filthy old hostel crawling with cockroaches with pillows more full of bedbugs than stuffing. That seems like the sort of venue where this night ends. Where everything ends.

I follow the kid like a happy little tagalong, and I stare at his ass. I kind of lose myself in the repetitive, mesmerizing jiggle, one cheek firming and then the other. I might be giving someone my platinum credit card and something might smell like orange trees and I might be walking on marble floor and I might hear the tinkling of water and pleasant music, but it's all kind of just a blur, like the things passing by on the sides of your car when you're focused on the road ahead. The road ahead is an underaged kid's fine, fine ass.

I'm fucked up. I'm so fucked up.

We're in an elevator, and it's shiny chrome and blue glowing buttons. I realize that we're probably not actually in some depressing hole in the wall where hope, love, and thirty-something millionaire superstars go to die. My brain keeps skipping like a record over reality itself, and the truth is I don't think it's all the drugs. I'd been so ready to be dead right now that my continued existence is starting to feel surreal in a way that's hard to explain.

My third movie has this fucking brilliant bit where I start riffing on the whole post credits scene thing. I loved this bit so fucking much when I put it together. I have to admit, even though I kind of hate everything I've ever said, done, or thought right now, I still think this is fucking gold. I just kept loading post credits scenes onto this movie. Post post credits. Post post post post credits. After a full thirty minutes of a black screen I'd filmed this extreme closeup of Stiller where you can basically see the actual blackheads inside of his pores and held it onscreen for two seconds. There's three total hours of this post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post credits scene-scene-scene-scene-scene nightmare.

I feel like I'm living that experiment right now. This is the post credits scene of my life. Movie's over, folks, because Rose is definitely dialing every international agency she can get her hands on trying to find my body and here we are, post-credits, only Stiller's face is a kid's butt.

We end up in the sort of room that I would have booked myself. It has a full wall tv screen, a king-sized waterbed, and carpets that you can sink your toes into and get a full body shudder of pleasure. The kid tosses the keys onto the table. He turns around, arms folded, face set in a glower, and fixes me with a look. He's waiting for me to say something.

"Not really what I expected," I say. Definitely has way more favourable room service to cockroaches ratio than I'd anticipated.

"No surveillance cameras, discreet staff, full amenities," the kid says. I really can't place his accent. It's not Saudi, but it's close? But I swear, it almost sounds Egyptian. And his English is really fucking good. Like, almost suspiciously good. I run his words over in my head and realize that if he knows this place, if he knew exactly where to come and how to book a room, then I'm probably his clientele.

Not sure how I feel about that. Or why he looks so damn skinny, if I'm the sort of business he does. 

"How much is this costing me?" I ask, sounding really casual. I don't care, at all. My credit limit could buy the entire island and everyone on it and I really don't intend to be around to have to pay it off.

The kid's eyes harden and his jaw bulges. "It's not coming out of your grand, if that's what you mean," he says. "Accommodations are out of _your_ pocket, lothario."

"Whoa, hold on." I hold up my hands. "I'm not planning to stiff you." I think about that. Try to put on my charming grin; it feels a bit stiff, itself. "Well, I guess I am."

The kid snorts. "Fucking perfect, I picked up a funny one." He looks me over. "What are you thinking?" he asks.

Right. Time to look at the menu and order. I stall. "What does the money get me?"

His eyes are so fucking cold. "Cash like that? Whatever you fucking want."

Be still my fucking heart. The romance. But the answer makes my heart beat a little faster, and I feel like a disgusting old man when my eyes sweep over him slowly. I think over my options, feeling my temperature rise a little. I want that ass. I want that mouth. I want that lithe little body all against mine. I want...

_To feel something._

Yeah, back up, Strider. That's a little too much content for a post-credits scene. But it doesn't go away, and I look into his eyes. I have to clear my throat before I can talk again. "What's your name?"

I get the joy of seeing him look shocked. "What the fuck?"

"What, does that cost more?"

"I don't give my name to johns, idiot."

"Cause I'm willing to _pay_ more," I wheedle.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me right now!"

"Come on. Come on..."

"Wh -- _fuck_. Just --" He makes an exasperated sound and his hand pushes through his mass of wild hair. He has black nail polish and it makes me think of Rose. Don't think of Rose. The kid seems to make up his mind. "Jim," he says, and there's a little glint in his eye.

"Oh, bullshit!" I scoff. "Come on. At least make it believable."

He drops his arms. "Car-cat," he says, instead, and I actually laugh.

"Yeah, okay. Solid step away from believable, there. Shoulda stuck with Jim."

"Oh, fuck you!" The kid has thick eyebrows and they pull down over his eyes. "That one was my actual name, jackass. Karkat. Like Karkinos. Like the crab. You don't have to be a fucking douchenozzle about it."

"Oh." Okay, well, now that he's clarified, that rings a bell. A weirdly familiar bell, actually. Something about the name Karkat and the sign Cancer and... I shake it off. Not really relevant to my post-credits scene. I wanted something to call him, and I've got it. I step a little closer. "I'm Dave," I say. My voice sounds way too soft, and it makes me flush. "Dave Strider."

"Fucking perfect," Karkat mutters, but I do see a little heat in his cheeks and he drops his eyes from mine. He doesn't seem to recognize my name, which is... nice, actually. And he looks real cute as he avoids my gaze. "Now we're basically fucking BFFs for life. What the fucking Christ. I pick up the one suicidal, whacked out American who wants to fucking _cuddle_."

Sometimes you're at a restaurant and you're not sure what you want but you have a hankering for _something_. You're just pouring over the menu. And that looks nice, and that looks nice, and oh that sounds really good. But then you see something, a picture, or the name of a dish, and there's this weirdly profound crystal clarity, considering this is just food. _Yes_ , you think. _That's it. What's what I came here for._

I swear to God, that's the exact feeling I get when he says the word _cuddle_.

I reach out. I brush my thumb across his cheekbone. He averts his gaze entirely, which is... pretty cute. Not going to lie. I think about the topless hottie I'd been thumping against the club wall. I think of the two blonde, foreign girls back at my actual hotel room, groupies I'd been eager to lose myself in. I think of the guy who'd given me the eye on the trans-atlantic flight and how he'd sucked my soul out through my dick in the airplane bathroom.

I think of Rose.

There's something linking all of them, here. Common denominator in the cavernous emptiness burning inside of me. I take a step closer to Karkat and his breath hitches. We're standing close enough that I can feel his body heat.

I don't want to fuck. I want to _connect_.

I tilt his chin up. "How old are you?" I ask.

This look of pleading desperation crosses his face and then is gone. "Why are you asking so many fucking questions?" he demands. "I'm eighteen. I'm twenty-one. I'm fourteen. I'm as old as you want me to be. What's wrong with you? Just -- just get on with it, just..."

I run my hands through his hair. Yeah, okay. Why are we dancing around this?

I lean down and I kiss him.

He's a good kisser. Shit, is he ever. His mouth is warm and soft and yielding and he definitely fucking knows how to be inviting. He leaves his mouth open just a little, practically begging me to slide my tongue inside, so I do. I plunder his sweet mouth gently and with great enthusiasm, and he meets my tongue with his in all the right places.

I've forgotten to breathe and I break away, panting. "I want you to fuck me like you're my boyfriend," I say breathlessly. My hands cradle his face, fingers brushing his cheeks.

"Whatever you want," he agrees, and his voice makes me crazy. I go back in for another kiss.

I groan into his mouth. My hands slide down his neck, his arms, come to rest on his round sweet ass. He puts his arms up around my neck and I shudder, yes. I can feel his body pressed against me all the way down. I want to push through his skin and reach something deeper, to immerse myself inside of him, to pluck the electric pulses of his nervous system like Rose on her violin. I want to feel him, I want to _know_ him. He moans and I go just crazy, losing myself in him.

I break away again, forehead pressing against his. There has be some way, some way to feel more, stronger, harder. I'm so hard and so turned on, longing -- just _longing_ , every part of me --

I look down at him.

He's got his eyes closed real tight, face scrunched up like he's waiting for a blow. I can't tell if it's because he thinks one's coming, or if it's because this tender fucking bullshit is the worst case scenario for him and he's just trying to get through it.

And --

and

Fuck.

fucking

Idiot.

fuck

He isn't my boyfriend, are you kidding me, Strider? Not even close. He's a teenage prostitute on an island that basically exists for rich white people get high as balls, blow their eardrums listening to pretentious DJs, and then get their brains fucked out. Karkat kisses me, moans for me, embraces me -- because I paid him to. He doesn't want my desperation clinging all over him. He's just going to outlast me and see how high he can drive up the price. I'm using him and I'm taking advantage of him and even that doesn't really matter to me, except that that makes it _just as fucking meaningless as everything else._

I step away, out of his arms.

"Fuck," I say. The emptiness is back, maybe worse than before, I feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes. What am I doing? What the fuck am I looking for? What fucking _is_ this? There's one single person in the entire world who has _ever_ given me any sort of real connection and I ruined everything with her and what's the point of -- any of this? "Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm not -- I don't know what the fuck this is, I --"

Karkat's eyes flicker open. He looks at me. I can't read him. "What's wrong?" he asks. His fingers reach for me, and for just a second it feels real, it feels familiar, it feels comfortable, and I go to step back, tell him I'm fine, nothing's wrong. But I stop myself when I remember I told him to pretend he's my boyfriend. He's not my boyfriend. He's just some poor kid I've cast to star in my fucked up post-credits scene.

"I can't do this," I say. I run a hand through my hair and step away. I get halfway to the door before he stops me.

"Hey," he says, and I turn like a fucking idiot, my heart lifting, cause some dumbass part of me is thinking, holy shit, he wants me to stay. But his arms are folded again and his eyes are cold and hard and he's got his feet planted like he's waiting for a fight. "I don't kiss on the mouth for free, asshole. Don't you fucking dare just walk out of here!"

Right. Right, this was a transaction. I open my wallet. I've got three grand in USD and a few hundred euros in cash. I consider for a second, then shrug. Eh. Can't take it with you. It's probably going to end up in some sleazy policia pocket anyway when they find my corpse and the post credits scenes finally stop. Might as well go to a kid who probably has higher ambitions than this. Hell, at least become real high class with the whole operation. He'd get better clients with a form-fitting three piece suit than he ever will with the Avicii follower get-up.

I roll up the banknotes and toss them his way.

I savour the look on his face as he counts the money. His eyes are practically bulging by the end, and his eyes snap to my face. Not so cold and hard, now. He really does have beautiful eyes. I tip an invisible hat to him. "All the best, Kitkat," I tell him, and I get the pleasure of watching his gaze go flat with annoyance before I leave.

I'm definitely a lot more sober than I was. I'm able to triangulate what street I'm on, hail a taxi, and find my way back to my own hotel. My rooms are dark and the Swedish blondes are gone. There are several days just missing from my chronology, so that's pretty fair. There are other bored, empty millionaires who'd actually make their daily payments. Nothing personal, girls.

I go into the bathroom. I fish around in my toiletries bag. There's a rattling sound and I withdraw the pills.

Rose made me go to a shrink. Rose is always looking out for me. Rose reminds me every day that antidepressants don't do shit if you don't take them.

Well, good news, Rose. I'm going to take them.

So I do.

I lay in my bed and stare at the ceiling and wait for something to happen. I've decided that ODing is a way cooler story for my legacy than drowning. Mixing SSRIs with some truly weird and wonderful designer drugs and dying in a grand a night hotel room, on an island I'm not even supposed to be on... that's a damn good Dave Strider story. That's one they can print in the papers and be fucking proud of. Shit, I should have written a note. Could I still get up and do it? Maybe something really cryptic, like I could imply that maybe I'd taken the pills at gunpoint and only you can find out who my killer is, person listening to this hot take on CNN right now. Never let it be said I'm not a showman to the end.

But I can't do that to Rose.

I can't put that on her. She'll know it was one of my stunts, but she, at least, deserves the clean break of the texts I sent her and that's all, without any bullshit mind games that will stick in her craw and choke her. _That_ was my suicide note.

And a vindictive part of me wants to imagine what the news stories will be like. We never really thought of him as a person. He was such a clever peddler of irony that we never took the time to find out who he was beneath it. If only we could have offered him something real instead of just swallowing his bullshit with our mouths gaping wide open.

Yeah... something is definitely happening now.

My legs feel numb. There's a weight in my chest and my vision is strangely faded. I try to move my head to one side but it just seems like way too much fucking effort. It's nice, kind of, to have my body finally matching the way my brain is thinking.

Rose will be okay. Rose will be better off. She can find some other schlub to help her deal with the whole Crockercorp shit. Someone who's _actually_ a hero instead of someone who just fooled her into thinking he was one for two decades. Rose will find someone who actually matches her fucking sexual preferences and isn't the same horny teenage boy acting like a fucking...

The thought floats away. Thoughts start to get really abstract, and that's good too. I like this, except for the weight in my chest. A couple of hours, and all of this will be over. Just a couple of...

Fuck. Here come the hallucinations.

The kid, the hooker, Karkat, his face is above me, blocking my view of the ceiling. His hands are on my shoulders. There's a strange nocturnal gleam in his eyes. Are his irises red? He has his hands on my face and I think that it's really nice my brain is running a simulation of fucking him before I die, after all, but then I feel him shaking me and I realize with a fucking rush of so many emotions at once, that this _isn't_ a hallucination at all.

He's on the phone, and I struggle to hear his words. He's speaking rapidfire Catalan and I don't know how to parse it. I hear something about an American and something about an ambulance and then darkness rises up to envelop me.

I think I smile.

  



	3. Interlude 1: June, 1981 // WELCOME FOSTER CHILDREN OF AMERICA

  


He squirmed impatiently in the back of the van. He fiddled with the straps on his ancient, ragged HR Pufnstuf backpack while the seats closer to the front slowly emptied out. He swung his legs, and he furrowed his brow, and he turned and looked out the window.

There were already a lot of other kids running out and about in the camp grounds. Some girls about his age were playing jump rope. A group of boys were trading baseball cards. Some of them were wearing new, shiny clothes, but most of them looked about as tattered as he knew he did. That was good. Maybe he'd fit in.

The van driver finally got to him. He straightened and tried to be good and keep still while the driver undid his seat belt for him like he was a baby.

"There we go, buddy," the driver said, helping him down from his seat. He checked his clipboard. "You're Michael Johnson?"

"Yeah," Michael said.

The driver made a mark on the board. "Okay, we're all good here!" He helped him down. "See that building right over there? You just head in and meet all your counselors! Have a great summer, Mikey!"

 _Mikey_. He tried the nickname out in his head, but it didn't feel right. Nothing ever did.

The big log building was packed full of both kids and counselors and it was so loud Michael instinctively clapped his hands over his ears. He wandered about in a wide-eyed daze until one of the counselors grabbed his arm.

"You don't have a name tag!" she shouted over the drum of noise. He blinked at her. Was he supposed to get a name tag? His confusion must have showed on his face, because she pointed to a long table swarming with other kids. "Go there and get one! Do you have a team yet?" He shook his head. She put her hands on her hips and let out a frustrated stream of air. "Ugh, this is so disorganized..."

Was he supposed to go? He didn't know. She'd let go of his arm, but...

She saw him staring up at her and shook her head. "Okay, just go fill out a name tag and then go and wait by the big tree outside, okay? Go there and don't move."

He nodded. It felt better to have some sort of instruction.

He had to shoulder some other kids aside to get to the table. He picked up a red marker, because red was his favourite colour, and got a sheet with the big HELLO, MY NAME IS tags on it. He bit the tip of his tongue as he took his time writing out M I C H A E L. And then he looked at the tag, and he made a face.

He peeled it off and crumpled it up and tossed it down onto the uneven wood floor.

If it was so super disorganized, it might take days before they found out who he actually was. So he wrote M I K E Y on another sticker, but he hadn't liked that, either, so he peeled and scrunched and started again.

T O M M Y.

Peel. Crumple.

J I M M Y.

Peel. Crumple.

M A R K.

Peel. Crumple.

C O O L D U D E.

He laughed. But then crumpled that, too. He didn't think anyone would believe that was his name, and the point was to fool people so hard that "Michael" felt as wrong to them as it felt to him.

D A V E.

His marker left the sticker and he gazed at the red letters. He cocked his head. That one... fit. Something about it seemed to stick against him like other names, including his own, never had. It felt like _him._

He peeled it, and this time, he stuck it onto his old, threadbare shirt. He smoothed it over so it didn't pucker, and then he pushed his way back through the crowd, away from the hail of discarded names he'd left on the floor, and left the cabin. He saw the tree the counselor had told him about and headed over there.

There was a girl sitting under it. She was reading a book.

She had her legs tucked under her and was wearing a pink skirt and a headband with bows on it in her hair. She was as pale and freckled as he was, but blonder. Her old t-shirt was a few sizes too small, and he immediately felt a kinship with her, because his sneakers had holes in them. And because it felt like he knew her from somewhere, but that thought was strange and coiled up oddly in the back of his head and wouldn’t go away.

He settled down beside her. Her name tag had been written in purple. It said "S U S A N." She didn't look like a Susan.

"Hi," he said.

She turned her page.

"Where are you from?"

No response.

He picked a few strands of grass. Kids and counselors were streaming in and out of the big log cabin. He looked back at the girl. The book looked really thick, like a real chapter book. "Did a counselor tell you to sit here, too?"

"Yes," she answered. Just that, but he felt a surge of victory.

He looked back at the building. There was a banner hanging over the door, and he sounded out the words. WELCOME FOSTER CHILDREN OF AMERICA, he finally managed to make out. He could bet anything that the girl could have read it without even taking time to study the words. She seemed like the smart type.

"What's your book about?" he asked.

She sighed. She tucked a scrap of paper between the pages and closed it, then turned the cover to face him. _Dracula_ , by Bram Stoker. He was impressed.

"Aw, hell! Are you not scared out of your pants?"

"No," she said. "I don't get scared. Fear is a product of the weakest part of the human mind. I let myself get thrilled, but never scared."

"Oh," he replied. That was a strange sort of answer, but he kind of liked it. It sounded smart. "Where are you from?"

"New York," she said. "I take it you're from Texas? You have the accent." Her gaze dropped to his name tag. "Dave," she said, pronouncing the name carefully, and it sounded _right_ coming out of her mouth. "What's your last name, Dave?"

He couldn't tell her it was Johnson, because then she'd tell a counselor and ruin his cover. So he said the first thing that came to his mind. "Strider."

She blinked, and then she laughed. He liked her laugh a lot. Her violet eyes twinkled. "Are you the lost king of Gondor?" she asked.

His nose wrinkled. "What?"

"Never mind." She shook her head. Smiled at him. "I don't think that's your real name." Her voice took on a confidential tone. "It's much too interesting. Real people have boring names. Like Susan Smith. We never have interesting, or beautiful, or exotic, or fun names."

He rubbed at the back of his neck. He kicked at the grass a bit, and then shrugged. "Okay, maybe it's not my real name. But I like it. I think it's a really cool name." He shot her a look. "Don't tell anyone. I'll say you're making it up for attention."

Her expression sobered. "Well," she said. "It wouldn't be the first time someone accused me of that when I was telling the truth."

He looked away quickly. But the words stuck with him, choking him all the way down. They hung in the air and he needed to purge them. "Um," he started. "Um. You know, you don't have to be Susan Smith. No one is here to tell you that you're Susan Smith. Everybody is running around like a headless chicken."

"When they finally sort it all out, there's going to be two names missing and two names that just popped out of nowhere," she said. She sounded very, very reasonable. Almost so reasonable that she was making fun of him, but he didn’t think so. "I doubt they're going to assume that _you're_ Susan."

"But that could be a week," he told her, looking back at her face. "And that's a week you can spend being whoever you want. Like, _whoever_. That's cool, right? Who would you be, if you could be _anybody_?"

She opened her mouth, and he could tell she was just going to shut him down and instruct him to go put the right name tag on. But then her lips closed and she glanced off. She stroked the cover of her book. Finally, she replied: "I think I'd be someone mysterious. Dramatic. Like… Carlotta. Mia. Juliet. Portia. Rose." She stopped. She nodded. "Rose," she said firmly.

She looked like a Rose. He couldn't imagine a better name for her. It just... fit, like a puzzle piece falling perfectly into place. Something tickled the back of his head, but when he went digging for it, it was gone.

He leaned closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "We should go and get a name tag that says that," he said. "It'll be so dope. Everyone will call you Rose until they find out differently. And then they'll already know you as Rose, so they'll keep calling you Rose. See? I've got this all planned."

She squirmed away and gave him a chastising look. There was a little smile on her lips, though, and he smiled back. He thought that she liked him, maybe. He hoped that she did. "This is very silly," she said. "Why so much fuss over a name? I've always been Susan."

"You've always been _you_ ," he said. "Susan is a sticker they put on you that holds who they say you are together. It isn't _you_."

She blinked and looked away. He didn't know where that came from. Someplace weird and deep and he found himself just suddenly hating that things kept coming out of him without his consent. "Sorry," he said. "I bet you had really nice parents who died who gave you that name. I was a surrender baby." He doesn't know what exactly that means -- just that there had never been parents. Never been anyone who cared about him. "They just took the most common name registered that month and stuck it on me. So I don't like it." Because it was a label he wore, a daily reminder that there had never been a day in his life where anyone had actually wanted him.

The girl stood up suddenly. She tucked her book into a worn old canvas bag she held at her side, and extended a hand down to him. He eyed it suspiciously.

"Are you gonna toss me into the dirt?" he asked. "I said I was sorry. I open my mouth sometimes and stuff just comes out."

"I'm not going to toss you," she said primly. "I just want company while I perform this act of perjury."

He didn't know what that meant, but he let her help him up and dusted his knees off with his hands. "Does that mean you're going to do it?"

"Yes, I think so," she said, with a brilliant smile. She had perfect teeth. "You convinced me. The only catch is that you can't blow my cover. In fact, we should corroborate one another's stories. So we'll spend the month together, and you swear that I'm Rose Lalonde, and I'll swear that you're Dave Strider."

He was so eager to be let in on a secret that he nearly gave himself whiplash nodding.

When she tore off her Susan tag and replaced it with the Rose one, he couldn't help but feel like something ever so slightly crooked had been put right.

  



	4. When I Finally Got Sober I Felt 10 Years Older

  


TT: Well, far be it from me to speak a word of dissent against the great Dave Strider. It's impossible to know what the consequences of such an action could be.  
TG:: okay rad  
TG:: its taken us years to get to this point but im real happy youre finally figuring shit out  
TG:: we should probably hold some sort of shindig in honour of this moment  
TT: Oh, most assuredly. I'll bake a cake and write "At Long Last, I Have Seen The Easiest Way Out Is a Smile and a Nod." You can have the piece with 'long' on it, as I'm sure you can extract all sorts of innuendo from the experience.  
  
I grin, laughing under my breath. I like to pretend she's a bag of wind, but she can always make me laugh. Somewhere, something twinges, and I think that things aren't okay between us, but I can't seem to remember why I think that or what happened. Right now, things feel... good.

Things feel pretty great.

TG:: you should serve yourself the piece with easiest on it  
TG:: and then you can serve yourself in the truest way  
TG:: see what I did there  
TT: Yes, Dave, I do in fact see what you did there.  
TG:: ok good its hella crucial that you're not missing out on the intricate levels of my sass  
  
There's this annoying noise fluttering at the edge of my hearing. Like an annoying, repetitive beep, pinging over and over and over again.

TT: Dave?  
  
I squeeze my eyes, trying to focus on Rose and not on whatever that is. My arm hurts, but when I look down at it, everything seems on the level.

TG:: yeah what  
TT: Do you  
TT: Hm.  
TT: Do you ever stop and think for a moment and realize that you're actually... happy? That things are good and simple and easy?  
TT: Do you ever think that maybe you'd be fine if we never ended up at our destination, and we just stayed here, forever.  
  
What's she talking about? Destination? Well, never mind that. _Happy_? Shit, Rose. That's incredibly optimistic, here, do you know who you're talking to? But I'm typing a response without thinking.

TG:: yeah  
TG:: yeah i know what you mean i just like  
TG:: ugh i actually try not to think about this because i start feeling guilty because of course i start to miss everybody and i know we have big important things to do and who the fuck feels content when they're in a three years long transition period where theres literally nothing productive to accomplish  
TG:: like what sort of person is like  
TG:: look i know i have huge things in front of me including literal godhood and thats cool and all but  
TG:: nah  
TG:: i wanna just camp out on this rock for the rest of my life  
TT: Imagine how I feel.  
TT: I'm supposed to be a Light player, remember. Focused on the goal and interested primarily with the path we must take to reach victory.  
TT: It's a rejection of my entire self, my entire reason for existing, to be so content with such a meandering, purposeless life.  
TT: And yet...  
  
"Hey."

I recognize the voice. I can't place it, but I _know_ I recognize it. And it makes my heart swell and my toes tingle and I feel that thing Rose was talking about -- the thing that _I_ was talking about without even knowing what the fuck I was rambling on about. Happy. I feel really, really happy.

I want to turn towards that voice, away from the annoying beeping and the pain in my arm.

I glance up from my phone. 

Happy vanishes. Because I'm sitting with my ass perched on a ledge, and all around me is this black abyss of nothingness, this utterly fucking soulless void, and my eyes catch something, a flicker of movement, and when my brain starts putting together the _size_ and _dimensions_ of what could have caused that movement and measuring it against the size and dimensions of _me_ , I actually might shit my pants, and so I --

\-- flee --

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

My eyes flicker open.

They're sticky and crusty and it takes a long moment for my gaze to focus. I'm looking up at a tiled ceiling. My head is achey and there's this painful sort of itch right at the inner crease of my elbow. I go to scratch it, still blinking and trying to piece my, uh, _self_ together, really. My fingers come into contact with medical tape and tubing, and I think I remember where I am? Maybe.

I reach back, trying to recall things that are just at my fingertips. I glance over foggy, fading dream-thoughts of talking to Rose on some space station. I definitely remember getting on a plane in Barcelona-El Prat Airport, and getting off in Ibiza Town. After that...

Oh. Yeah.

Okay, so I definitely remember taking an entire bottle of pills. Wow. Really? That's like, the most suburban housewife way to kill yourself imaginable. Had I actually thought that was metal at the time? Nobody would be talking about the drugs. Everyone would be talking about the pills. I can just see the fucking headline. Superstar Hollywood Big Shot Dave Strider Is Dead, Basically A Rejected Sorority Pledge. Come on. Your brand deserves better than that, Strider.

And...

... Jesus.

I take a deep breath. I fight back a -- is that -- oh, yeah, that's a fucking sob coming from somewhere deep inside of me and I hate it. I hate it and I hate me. I can't believe I'm thinking about my brand right now. I cannot _believe_ that I'm in a European hospital with an IV in my arm whining about how uncool my attempt to end my own life was. Dipped in some 'casual macho misogyny,' as Rose would put it. That's where my brain goes. That's who I am.

This is the sort of tool you want to get away from, except that he lives inside your own fucking head.

This is the reason why a guy tries to kill himself.

My mouth is thick like mothballs and my tongue feels swollen. I stop being such a fucking ponce for a goddamn second and actually take a second to take stock of my body. And boy, I've done a number on it. Every part of me aches. I'm starving but the thought of food makes me feel like puking. The IV hurts like hell. I have noodly veins. They always have to try like six times to get the damn thing in. Fuck.

Fuck.

"Fuck," I say, and my voice sounds like a creaky old door.

I sense more than hear movement. Someone clears their throat. I try to prop myself up in bed, and wince. What the fuck did I _do_ to myself?

"Idiot. Here. Use this."

Someone presses something that feels like a burner cell phone into my hand. I fumble around with it, and oh, hey. The bed starts to move, putting my head up on an incline. In hilarious slow motion (I could use this for a shot. Fuck that I'm never making a movie again.) my room starts to come into view, as well as my companion.

It's the kid. The hooker.

Karkat.

He's not looking right at me. And he looks... fuck, a whole lot different. His slutty raver clothes are gone and he's wearing worn, scuffed jeans and a zip-up hoodie like three sizes too big for him. His hands are shoved into the front pockets and without the makeup he wore, he looks both older and younger than before. There's an angry flush darkening his brown cheeks.

I remember now. In flashes and stutters, like the least fun strobe-lit night of my life. Meeting the kid, the hotel, kissing him, leaving him. And then him in my room. On my phone. Slapping me across the face. There are paramedics in my hotel room and he's still there. I'm riding in an ambulance and he's still there.

He stayed.

That's...

Huh.

"Hey," I say. I sound a little bit less like a dead frog this time, which is nice. I do, however, sound confused and hopeful and touched and pathetic. Less nice.

"Yeah. Hi." Karkat reaches up and tugs at one of the drawstrings on his hood. He doesn't elaborate, I don't know what to say, and the flush on his cheeks deepens. "Awesome, as fucking scintillating as this is, I'm supposed to page the doctor when you get up. So I'm going to do that, now."

He gets halfway up from his chair before I manage to remember how to make my tongue move. There are a whole lot of things in what he's saying that I could latch onto, but there's time for that later. I think that some things need to be asked right now, or I'm going to lose the chance.

"You were in my hotel room. You made the call."

Slowly, the kid sinks back into the chair. His shoulders hunch up like he's cringing away from a blow. Protecting himself. "So?"

"Uh, so, you saved my fucking life, dude."

He shrugs. Both hands get shoved back into his pockets and he curls a bit in the seat. It's a marked difference between the working boy persona I saw before. I have this flash of insight -- it's a shield. He can act one way when he's wearing a costume. Without it, he can't.

I know that feeling.

"Is that normally included in your fee? Follow-up services?" I ask. I try to make my voice sound all teasing and fun but I just can't hack it. So it comes out sounding depressingly sincere, which sounds _depressingly_ pathetic.

He shoots me a dark look, eyes glaring out from beneath the fringe of his hair. "Look, okay. No. Listen, it wasn't --" He growls and mutters something under his breath. I really wish I could make it out. "People saw us together at the hotel."

"I thought it was supposed to be all super discreet."

"It is! And -- shut the fuck up and stop interrupting. You seemed... well, you seemed really fucked up! And if you ended up fucking dead somewhere, then a really not fun amount of people had seen us together and I didn't need that, okay? 'Discreet' doesn't extend to dead celebrities. The _last_ thing I want is policia snuffling around because I'd taken some famous American up to a room and then someone fished him out of the harbour." Karkat looks away, biting his lower lip. It's... really cute. "I don't want that shit on my plate, got it?"

"Got it," I say. I try to frame this funny rejoinder where I'm like haha but I took pills instead of drowning myself so blah blah, I don't know. I can't find the comedy in the situation enough to try and piece together how to make it funny. Usually I'm pretty good at this sort of thing. I scratch my arm again. Fuck the IV itches like hell. I sigh and try not to fuck with it. If I pull that thing out it's going to be a whole fucking song and dance in here and I'm not ready to try and look some Spanish doctor in the face and be like yo we're both super-aware of how I tried to off myself and you saved me, how fun is that?

Sooo fucking fun.

"Well," I say, to distract him from summoning the doctor anyway. "I guess I'm alive."

"Yeah," Karkat says. "Guess so."

I really, really, really want to ask -- why are you still here? Because that's where his self-motivated explanation falls apart. Even if I believe that a pro who just inherited a frankly absurd amount of cash is afraid of getting questioned in what's obviously a suicide, I just can't wrap my head around why he'd stick around. Sitting by my fucking bedside like he's my boyfriend or something. Does he still think he's on the clock? Does he feel like he has some sort of... obligation? Is he one of those people who see a huge wad of cash as a debt to be repaid?

I hate the thought. I fucking hate it. The last thing I need is more people around me who don't want to be there, people who don't care about me, people who don't know me, people who only see the stupid facade I just can't stop putting up no matter how hard I try. It had all seemed like something I could handle, before the crimson battleship appeared in the sky over the eastern seaboard and Rose had fucking collapsed in front of me, convulsing.

Now?

What is the fucking point of a life filled with fake bullshit? Fake feelings, fake people, fake friendships, fake statements, and the fakest fake thing of all -- my own fucking self? What's the _point_?

I realize that I wish I had succeeded in my high school attempt at killing myself.

It's not a good thought. And I don't particularly want to try again. But I wish that my first go at it had stuck, because then I wouldn't be here.

I'm just so fucking tired.

"Well," I say. I just want to get it over with, now, because I can't fucking stand the thought of him sitting there, wanting to be gone. "Cool, thanks. I mean..." I try to work up some real heart for it -- the kid had saved my fucking _life_ for Christ's sake -- but I just can't find it. I sigh. "I really appreciate that you cared enough to come after me." Semi-truth provides semi-sincerity. Good as I can do. "You can probably... go now."

"I need to page the doctor," Karkat says.

"God, please don't," I beg. I close my eyes. "Please. Fuck, dude. I don't want to trot out my shitty-ass Catalan to try and communicate with a doctor who knows that I tried to fuck myself up and like, fuck, man, no way. That sounds like a nightmare." The word nightmare triggers remnants of the one I'd had, of something massive and malevolent lurking in the darkness of space. I shake it off.

"Look, if I'm leaving, I have to page the fucking doctor. So if you want me to go, I'm going to do that."

"Then don't go!"

Jesus Christ.

I turn my head to the side. I squeeze my eyes and grit my teeth and fist my hands. I try and get myself together, but how am I supposed to do that? "Okay," I say. "Look. Okay. Just -- tell me why you stayed, okay? Or, I guess -- do you _want_ to be here? Tell me that. Honestly, please, Jesus fuck, I cannot handle people being nice to me right now." Maybe that's the real reason I don't want to see the doctor. Hello, Mr. Strider! You had quite a close call, there! Yeah, no, get that fake-ass smile away from me before I short circuit.

After a long silence, I hear fabric shift as Karkat shrugs. "I don't not want to be here," he says, and there's something I can't quite place in his voice. "Is that good enough? I mean, I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just mean that I'm not sitting here wishing I weren't here."

 _Is_ that good enough? Fuck, who knows. Maybe. I don't think he's lying, at least, and he isn't playing a game, dancing for more money, either, so that's a thing.

"Okay," I say, and then, because I can't leave well enough alone, "but why?"

"Has anyone ever told you you're a fucking insufferable douchebag and a constant pain in the ass to be around?"

I think of Rose and smile faintly. "Um. Yeah."

Karkat sighs. I hear him move again. I imagine him running a hand through that gorgeous mass of hair. "Look, I don't know, okay? There's just... I don't know. You..." He growls again. "I don't fucking know! I just don't want to leave! Okay? Do you require a fucking twelve point list?"

I laugh faintly. "Yeah, okay. I can do without the list, I guess. Maybe. For now." I still don't have it in me to look at him again. I can't tell if I'm embarrassed or what. "Do you have a last name?" I ask him.

"Everybody's got a last name, jackass."

Yeah, true enough. I even had one before I'd rebranded myself, and I didn't come from anywhere at all. "That was me subtly trying to get you to tell it to me."

A pause. "Vantas," he says. "Karkat Vantas."

I nod. I finally work up the nerve to turn my head back. There's a brush of coolness against my cheek, and I realize that I'd actually shed a tear. Damn. I must be on my fucking period, here. _There's nothing funny or shameful about menstruation, Dave,_ Rose's voice chastises in my head. _I think you would consider the amount of blood I've shed in my lifetime rather 'manly,' in truth._

Rose.

God, Rose. What have I done to Rose? She deserves to know that I'm alive, but I can't stand the thought of telling her. I still don't want to face her, for one thing. And for another... for another, once I make contact with Rose -- with _anyone_ from my actual life, and not Karkat Vantas the island hooker who exists in the vacuum of this specific bender -- reality is back with a vengeance. The vacation of being in the space between life and death ends, and I resign myself to continuing to live.

"Heard anything about Rebranding Day this far out?" I ask. I try and sound casual.

Karkat gets this furrow between his brows. I have this weird urge to reach out and smooth it. "Yeah, fucking obviously," he says. "We made contact with alien life, dumbass. This is Europe, not fucking Uranus."

"Wow, I'm super judging your choice of _Uranus_ , here. God, that shit is a trip. Either you pronounce it so that it's a ass joke or you pronounce it so that it's a piss joke. There is no dignity in any quarter for poor Uranus." I pause. "Maybe she's from Uranus. You know. Betty Crocker, or whoever she is." I know who she is. If I believe Rose. Which I do.

"Is that what... all of this is about?" Karkat asks. He makes a vague motion with his hand. 'All of this,' meaning the IV, the heart monitor, the hospital room, the island, _him_. "The whole thing is fucking skull-crackingly insane, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure it's the end of the world. After all, she's been here since the 20s, right?"

The end of the world is exactly what it is, if I believe Rose, which I do. 

But Karkat's saying what everyone's saying, what I heard on the flight over, what Rose and I watched on the news while she held an ice pack to her forehead and murmured the things that she'd seen during her seizure. The battleship is terrifying, sure, but Betty Crocker the alien empress has been here for our lifetimes and then some. All she wants is to live on earth and conduct business in our fascinating capitalist system.

 _She intends to subjugate humanity and mold us into the empire she lost,_ Rose had said, her voice low and sonorous. _She'll fail. And then she'll have no use for us._

I'd turned to look at Rose, and the space between us had felt thick and heavy. _So... what?_ I'd asked.

 _So,_ Rose had said. Her violet eyes had shone in the dark, reflecting the light from the TV. _The world ended today. We're just watching its death throes._

And I'd loved Rose _so much_ , so much it had risen up in my throat and fucking choked me, just fucking sucked all the life out of me and all I'd been able to think about was that it wasn't fair, there was so much left for me to do, I'd never even made a real fucking connection in my _entire life_ to anyone except her -- just her... only her...

And then...

And then.

Karkat is still sitting by my bedside, confused, thinking I'm some doomsayer, waiting for an answer. I feel his eyes on me and I can't let myself remember what had happened next. I shake my head and meet his eyes.

"Yeah," I say. I try and sound carefree, but I can't. I just can't. "I guess it's not the end of the world."

There's a scuffle of movement at the door and I look up, expecting the doctor to finally have arrived on his rounds.

Instead, I'm looking at Rose.

"Oh my god," she says, and her voice breaks hard. "Oh my god, _Dave_."

  



	5. But Fuck It

  


She looks like shit.

Rose's image is as cultivated as mine is, and I can't remember the last time I've seen her in public like this. I can't even remember the last time I've seen her in _private_ like this. It might have been never. She's dressed way down in a pair of yoga pants and a wrinkled blouse. She isn't wearing any of her characteristic dark makeup. I'm not exactly an expert, but I don't think she's wearing any makeup at _all_ , which would be a first. Her cheeks are puffy red, her eyes have bags underneath, and she just looks haggard as fuck. Her hair is in a ponytail. I've never seen her hair in a ponytail in my entire life. If anyone's taken photos of her, she's going to be furious.

Probably no one has. Because nobody would look at her and see the sleek, gothy, mysterious Rose Lalonde from her glamorous About The Author photos. She just looks like a slightly overweight, kind of pretty blonde woman who's had a fucking nightmare of a day.

And she looks like Rose.

Which fucking wrecks me.

We stare at one another. The silence starts to stretch. The beeping from my heart monitor is getting almost impudent, like it's begging for attention. Karkat doesn't move a muscle. Rose's bloodshot violet eyes are filled with tears, and her lips are folded so tight that they're white and she looks worse than I've ever seen her and I did this to her.

I'm a piece of shit.

"Hey," I say.

" _Fuck_ you." Rose bursts into tears.

Yeah. I deserve that.

I don't know what prompts me to throw a searching look at Karkat. He doesn't know me from Adam, assuming Adam is the name of a john who gets all the way to the hotel room, kisses like a desperate lonely virgin, and then hustles out of there to kill himself. I seek his eyes like he's going to provide some sort of moral support like it's an instinct or something. He's just as confused as I am. He glances to one side and the other, and then shakes his head quickly and looks down at the floor. He doesn't want to be here. Fair enough, I don't want to be here, either. I don't really want to be anywhere.

Rose drops her hands to her sides. "Do you know how -- can you possibly --" She chokes on sobs, and she needs a moment, and I can't look right at her. Good job, Strider, you've fucked her up really good. My heart fucking aches. I need to apologize, but I'm not sure I can.

"I've been calling you," she says, wiping tears. "Nothing but fucking voicemail."

"Yeah. My phone went for a swim in the Mediterranean."

"Idiot. What is _wrong_ with you? What were you thinking? Are you alright?"

One loaded question after another makes my soul creak under the weight. I take a deep breath. "Well," I say, and I sound too casual. So casual that I'm obviously screaming inside. It's so loud that I can't hear myself think. I doubt I'm missing out on much. "I'm alive."

Rose buries her face in her hands, and her shoulders shake just once, and I just...

I just can't.

I feel my muscles all go slack and I fall back into the bed, and I just can't. This whole conversation, this whole encounter, it's just... it's happening somewhere outside of me, and the plain and simple truth of it is that I really do wish I'd died. I'm seeing this vision of what's ahead of me and I feel so fucking...

What's the point?

What's the fucking point?

Nothing matters.

The dead, tense space between us stretches. Rose can't seem to look at me. And appropriately, I can't look at her, either, because there's just too much weight to her very presence. My miraculous aliveness doesn't change dick, in the end. Things are completely fucked up between us. Maybe fucked up beyond any possibility of repair. _Definitely_ too fucked up to start repairing so fucking soon. Rose had wanted to talk, blowing up my phone the whole way from JFK to the moment I dunked it in the sea, but now that we're in the same place, there really isn't anything to say. I think she's realizing that.

I think she knows that there's nothing either of us can say that will make it better.

She finally looks at me. "This is my fault," she says.

Kind of. And not even a little bit. I don't know what to say so I say nothing at all.

Karkat finally moves.

He slinks to his feet. "I... um. Yeah. This is bullshit and none of my business, so I'm going to fucking evacuate."

Watching Rose spring to life is like seeing some deadly desert creature wreck its prey. Her eyes flash and she pins Karkat with her gaze. Grief and confusion and regret and guilt all seem to disintegrate behind the intensity of Rose Lalonde finding a purpose. I envy her so deeply that it hurts. "You're the one who brought him here," she says. Her voice is a whipcrack. "You saved his life."

Karkat flushes darkly. He shoves his hands into his pockets, which hunches his shoulders forward. "Yeah?" The words are half a shield and half a challenge. The challenge part is a bad idea. Never challenge Rose.

Rose narrows her eyes. I'm watching her sort him out, putting him into boxes, take him apart and then build him back up in her mind. The thing is, she's missing crucial information. Without the slutty clothes and the eyeliner and mascara, he doesn't look like a pro. He just looks like a kid.

"You're Moroccan," she says, and if nothing else it's relief to finally have some context for the weird accent. "What are you doing in Ibiza?"

Karkat shrugs. I can see him shriveling under Rose's barbed attention. I don't think he's the type of dude who does well under intense scrutiny, which sucks for him. Sorry, bro, welcome to motherfucking scrutiny city, ruled by the Medusa gaze of Rose Lalonde. "Making money," he says.

"What for?" Rose doesn't even give him a moment to breathe.

He looks up with eyes flashing and it occurs to me that maybe he can give her a run for her money if she pushes him too hard.

"Maybe that's none of your fucking business?" he snaps, and she blinks. "I know you're probably real hot shit wherever you're from, but let me tell you how fucking microscopically little I give a shit sandwich about that. You might want to lead with something a little more like 'thanks for saving my...'" He shoots a glance back at me, and I shrug, because hell if I've ever been able to find a word to describe what Rose and I are, either. He shakes his head, meets Rose head on again, and his nostrils flare. "Fuck this, I'm out."

He goes to move around her, but she puts out an arm to block his way. "Your English is extremely good," she says. "You speak like it's your first language." Considering the colourful ass-reaming he just gave her, her voice is pretty damn conversational. That's just Rose and I'm used to it, but he looks fucking baffled by it. Baffled enough that he stammers for a second and then says:

"Thanks."

"You're very welcome. There isn't much need for English in Morocco. Arabic and French are the local tongues, and those who want to expand their horizons tend to focus on Spanish or Catalan."

Karkat clearly doesn't know what to say to that. I'm pretty fucking baffled at what she's getting at, myself, and I can usually follow her labyrinthine shit. He shrugs and rubs at his nose. For a flash of a moment, the gesture is so insanely fucking familiar that it staggers me, and then it's gone and he's just a teenager avoiding an awkward question from an adult. "Thanks," he says again.

"Are you going to get angry again if I ask you why you learned?"

Karkat looks up at her from under a furrowed brow. I realize that he's shorter than her by a good half a head. That's so fucking weird. It makes him seem younger. I'm not crazy about that; he's fucking young enough as it is, considering one of the few things I can clearly remember is how good kissing him felt. He doesn't say anything at all, and I guess Rose takes the best way it can be taken.

"Would you like to go to America?" she asks.

God, she's too fucking smart. Karkat's head jerks up and his eyes go wide and his hands fly out of his pockets. It all happens at once, and a second later he's got himself sorted and has realized he's shown his cards. He's hunching and sulking again and he shrugs. "I've thought about it. Sometimes. So fucking what?"

Yeah. Well. Nice try, Vantas, but you already blew the lid off this top secret operation. Even if you hadn't broadcast it so loud even _I_ heard it, Rose is a fucking bloodhound when it comes to reading people. You've got Uncle Sam on the brain and the cat is out the bag.

Rose is gracious enough not to point it out. Instead, she steps to one side. "Come back in five minutes, or so," she says. Her voice is about as gentle as it ever gets. "Or, if you want to squander an opportunity, walk out of here and go back and dealing ecstasy for raves. Obviously, I'd prefer the former, but you have a choice."

Karkat eyes her suspiciously for a long minute. His gaze flickers over to me, and I feel a flutter of _something_ when he meets my eyes before he looks away. It's this weird sense of deja vu, only I can't even place what it is that I'm deja vuing. All I know is that I feel like shit when he shuffles out of the room. I don't think he's dumb enough to go back to corners, but Rose doesn't know I lined his pockets pretty good. Maybe he'll decide he can get where he wants to go on his own.

It feels like there's a fucking hole in my chest if I let myself think that he's just going to walk out of this hospital and disappear. Fucking pathetic. I pay some poor kid to pretend he gives a shit about me and then let myself get good and convinced that he _does_.

I'm so worked up about this dumb shit that I forget to consider that I'm alone with Rose until she speaks again.

"Dave." Her voice is so goddamn quiet it barely sounds like her. Rose always sounds like she chose all her words in advance, arranged them perfectly, strung them on a line, and then when she finally speaks, she's more reciting than anything else. Right now? Not so much. Right now she sounds as human and as fumbling as I always feel when I'm talking.

Which I'm not. Because if I say a single word without the buffer of Karkat sitting there judging me, I... honestly don't know what will come out.

"You can't imagine how glad I am that you're alive," she says.

"That makes one of us," I say. It's a shitty fucking thing to say and she flinches and I hate that I just keep hurting her and I also don't care. I don't fucking care. I don't fucking care so hard that I rub my forehead and grind my teeth.

I came here to immerse myself in a sea of no cares, where there are no consequences for any action, and that felt so shitty I tried to kill myself. And now, the moment Rose walked through the door of my hospital room, I'm back in the real world, where everything you do or say is a rock in a pond with consequences and effects, and it maybe feels worse?

Maybe.

I honestly don't know. At least this is real.

"You missed the convention in Barcelona," Rose says. She'd said that when she was texting me, too, before my phone decided to pursue its lifelong dream of deep sea diving. I think she's trying to get back there and overwrite everything that happened instead of that conversation. That sounds like Rose. "They had to cancel your panel. Mr. Stiller is furious. He told the Daily Mail that he doesn't want to work with you anymore. That you're unreliable and self-absorbed and that you aren't worth the constant headache."

"Fuck the Daily Mail," I say, almost cheery. "Ben's cool, though. I mean, he's not wrong." Even I don't think I'm worth the constant headache. Can't blame the guy.

Rose pinches the bridge of her nose. I can tell that she's frustrated with me. Cool, fine. Whatever. I'm used to her being disappointed in me. That doesn't hurt. The only thing that hurts is hurting _her_ , and if she's annoyed, she's not bruised. "Dave," she says, and she speaks real slow like she's explaining something complicated to an especially stupid kid. "I think you may be underestimating how crucial Ben is to your success as a director. You enjoy a special status among your kind, where you're as much of a superstar as the actors you work with, but people are still expecting you to provide certain faces. You need to call him and apologize before he actually cuts ties."

It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say.

I look at her like she's gone crazy. Because, uh, she one hundred percent fucking has. What the actual fuck is happening, right now? "Rose," I say, "I'm not making any more movies."

She actually looks surprised. Which I'm sure makes me look surprised in turn, but _really_? Is this _really_ some kind of shocker, here?

"I mean," I say, but even trying to explain it is just ludicrous, so I start laughing. I sound bitter and hollow and every bark of laughter seems to suck the life out of Rose and I feel bad for that, sure, but what the fuck. "Dude," I say. "Civilization is fucking over. And I don't even fucking care! Do you understand just how fucking deep that well goes? Why -- what the fuck -- in what _universe_ do you think I want to make a bunch of bullshit, meaningless, post-irony garbage movies?"

"It's what you love," Rose says.

I lean back and close my eyes. "God," I say. "God, you have no idea how depressingly accurate that is. My shitty fucking movies are a monument to how clever I think I am, and you're right, I guess. That's what I love." I shake my head. I squeeze my eyes because I'm not going to fucking cry, are you kidding me. Not in front of Rose. I fucking refuse. "Nothing matters," I say.

The words echo in the room. They seem to repeat every time my heart monitor beeps. They float between us, threading around us, pulling us both closer together and further apart. They're the pure unadulterated truth, and they bring me back to the night before I left New York. Rose's eyes reflecting the light from the TV. _The world ended today. We're just watching its death throes._

 _So nothing matters,_ I'd said, and felt all the layers of shit I'd been wrapping around myself since Foster Camp in 1981 spool away and I'd realized just how empty and meaningless everything was. Everything except Rose.

So I'd kissed her, because nothing mattered.

"It was a mistake," Rose says, finally breaking the spell of my proclamation. "Neither of us were in any position to consent to anything. You'd seen me seizure. I'd had a vision. And we were both confronting not only our mortality, but the mortality of the entire human species. Realizing how alone we were in the world, but for one another."

I don't want to talk about this. I can't talk about this. I'd kissed _her_ , knowing that Rose was still just as gay as she had been before the world had ended. Knowing that it couldn't do anything but destroy what we had. Just because she hadn't stopped me didn't mean that _I_ wasn't the one who had poisoned the only real thing in either of our lives.

I can't talk about this. I just can't.

"How did you even get here?" I ask. My voice is hoarse and it hurts to talk around the lump in my throat, but hey, I get the words out. That's a good running start toward changing the subject and never talking about that night.

Rose looks away. She wants to talk about it so badly. That's how Rose wants to handle every situation: talk about it. Let's talk about it. Let's write an extremely wordy, impenetrable blog about it. Let's channel our emotions into a new novel about it. Let's beat these emotions into submission by sheer extensive cataloguing of them. I don't care what she says, that shit doesn't work.

"Your intentions were more or less clear," she says. Her voice is strained; she doesn't want to talk about this. Well, tough luck. I don't want to even be here and I'm taking that one for the team. "I called every hospital in a day's flight range of Barcelona and asked them to contact me if a Dave Strider or Michael Johnson was admitted. I got more than one call, but I narrowed it down by checking registries at nearby hotels. Then I caught a redeye."

"Shocked none of my handlers have found me yet," I mutter. I don't want to see a single one of them.

"Most of them don't know your birth name."

Fair enough.

There's another long silence. Rose still wants to talk about what happened in New York. I would honestly rather chop off my dick. She knows that if she lets it go, we might never talk about it. And in her mind, if we never talk about it, we never _fix_ it. She's too optimistic. If she really sits down and thinks about it, she'll figure out that there's no fixing shit. It's truly fucking broke.

"You can't just give up, Dave," she says quietly. "Didn't I tell you as much? The Empress will do what she will and it can't be stopped, but I truly don't think that my vision was one without any hope. I saw flashes of things. We have roles to play. _You_ have a role to play."

What if I don't care? I don't say it outloud. It would cut her. Rose cares a whole lot about roles and purposes and destinies. 

She waits for me to respond, and when she realizes that I'm not going to say dick, her eyes harden and I think I see a glimmer in them. "Fine. Forget the Empress. Forget the future. Forget the human race. You're a selfish fucking idiot. Yes, fine! Things between us are _complicated_ , right now. Do you not understand that I'd still do anything for you? Do you know where _I_ would be, if all of this" -- she indicates the room -- "had _succeeded_? You're the only thing _alive_ that has any meaning to me, Dave! Which you _know_! Find someone, you say. All noble. As if I haven't tried. As if you don't know that there's a hole in me that I've never been able to fill. Are you _really_ so eager to leave me here to face the end _alone_?"

This time, I care.

I swallow hard. Again. Again. I won't cry. I am not going to fucking cry, grow _up_ , Strider. But I can't stop, because Rose's words keep running through my head, and I hate that I've hurt her, I hate that I've been so selfish, and more than anything else, I hate that I can't even quit this shitty life without fucking everything else and ruining things for the only person who matters to me.

"Please don't die, Dave," Rose says. "Please. Please don't leave me."

I wipe away my tears. I grind my jaw, and I hate that she's doing this to me, but I nod.

We just kind of leave it like that. She stands there, crying silently, and I'm laying in my bed, listening to my heart beep, trying not to fucking lose my shit. If I let myself go, I think I could cry like I haven't cried since I was, like, nine. Just let it rip through me and tear me up and leave me hollowed out and aching and fuzzy with endorphins and weak. But I don't let myself go.

It's pretty fucked up, isn't it? That a guy will try to die but be afraid to cry.

I'm a real piece of work.

By this point, I'm pretty sure that Karkat Vantas is long gone. I'm trying not to think about it too hard. I'm trying not to let it hurt like a corkscrew in my fucking heart, because I don't even know him. Rose put together more information about the kid in a once-over than I managed in all of my lurid shit with him at the discreet hotel. How can you feel abandoned by a person you know absolutely nothing about?

But I can't help it. When he slinks back in through the door, my heart skips a beat.

Rose snaps into action. I've always loved the way that she can bury any negative emotion under the sheer weight of superiority, and I'd recognize the look she gives Karkat anywhere, because I've been on the ass end of it plenty of times.

"This is what I'm going to offer you," Rose says, all prim authority. "Dave lives in Los Angeles, and I live in upstate New York. There are... reasons why it isn't in his best interests for me to keep an eye on him. And I'm sure you'd agree that he does, in fact, need an eye."

Karkat shrugs. "If you don't want him finishing the job, that sure does seem fucking obvious." There's uncertainty on his face. He doesn't know where Rose is going with this, but I think I do, and I'm honestly flat out terrified.

"He's in a fragile state right now. I think it would do him harm to be around his usual cohorts. But he needs watching, and I can't provide it. I'll pay you five thousand USD a month off the books to stay with him. I'll also exploit my contacts to leverage a quick path to legal immigration for you, once this... situation has stabilized."

I don't want this. The absolute last thing I want is someone else in my life paid to pretend to care about me, and that's absolutely the tip of the iceberg. Has Rose really not guessed how he and I met one another? Sure, he doesn't put off any hooker vibes in normal clothes and a fresh face, but he's clearly not eighteen and I'm clearly way off the deep end. Age of consent in Spain might be thirteen, but back home in Cali, it's eighteen. Dave Strider, fresh off some covered up suicide attempt, swearing off movies, going all hermit, and keeping some... third world houseboy? The narrative fucking writes itself. No way. No fucking way.

And the alternative is flying home and leaving him here.

The thought curdles my insides like spoiled milk. It makes me dizzy with a sense of pure wrongness, makes my heart ache and my soul recoil.

Karkat is looking at me, searching for some signal, and all I can do is look back, caught between horror and longing. I don't want Rose to pay this kid to babysit me. And if he refuses to do it, because not even fat cash and a free ride to the land of the free can make being around me palatable, I'm not sure I'll be able to go on.

"Why the fuck do you even think he'll put up with me being there?" Karkat asks.

"Because Dave is almost samurai-esque in his concept of loyalty and debts. And you saved his life."

I watch Karkat chew on that. I shake my head faintly. Samurai? Fucking please. Laying it on a little thick there, Rose. Honour and duty and devotion to a cause -- I have none of that. That's not me, I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who needs a constant stream of fast cars, willing partners, and interesting drugs paraded in front of me so that I don't look too hard into my own abyss and go postal.

But Karkat is worrying at his bottom lip (and fuck me, it's cute) and giving Rose a considering look. "What..." he closes his mouth. He thinks for a second. "What do I have to... do?"

This is definitely the moment where Rose figures out that I picked this kid up fully intending to fuck him. I brace for it, the horror in her eyes as she turns and looks at me and our relationship is well and truly shattered for good. But somehow, she doesn't. Somehow, she takes the question at face value. "Only the one thing. Just be around him and make sure that he doesn't..." Her mouth twists and she glances away.

Rose never flinches. It's a punch right in the heart that I've done this to her.

Karkat glowers. "I'm not like -- I'm not doing shit, I'm not cleaning up or answering his phones or scrubbing floors. Nothing like that, fuck that. No way."

"You won't have to," Rose promises. "I can swear it."

"So I just watch him and collect cheques? That simple?"

"That simple," Rose says, and then her eyes harden. "But let me make this clear -- if I ever catch you selling drugs to him, you'll be deported in no time."

God. She really thinks that he's a dealer, not a hooker. Rose, come on. You're smarter than this. In a way, it's kind of flattering that she thinks I'm above soliciting an underage kid.

"That's not going to be an issue," Karkat grumbles, and I can tell he's really thinking about it.

Just say no, I want to say. I don't even want you there. But I can't. The words are piled up in my chest like traffic congestion, and I have to admit that I really just want him to say yes. Because there's just something about him, and I can't stand the thought of him just sliding back into the seven billion doomed lives on this planet and vanishing forever.

Karkat folds his arms. He squares his stance. He clenches his jaw. "Whatever," he says, a little too loud. "Fine. I'm not a fucking numbskull, turning down easy money. But the second I'm doing _anything_ other than watching this catastrophic disaster of a human being --" he jerks his thumb at me "-- I'm fucking out, got it?"

"I think I can agree to those terms," Rose says, extending a hand, and Karkat shakes it.

I realize that I haven't said a word since Rose started making this ludicrous offer, that they're deciding on my life right over my head and I can't even work up the fake-anger enough to be surly about it. I run a hand through my hair. Greasy as fuck. Whatever. Who cares.

Nothing matters.

"Rad," I say.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is supposed to update every two weeks on Saturday but this one is a day early. Things will go back to normal on October 12th.


	6. It Was Something To Do

  


An hour later, I'm discharged.

The doctor hovers around us while Rose and I sign a bunch of papers. He expresses his very fluttery disapproval. It's awkward as fuck and I try to tune out my brain so that I can't translate his frantic Catalan quick enough to really understand him. Something, something, suicide watch. Something, something, mental health professional. Something, something, overnight observation.

Rose does what Rose does and takes total control of the situation. She puts on that tone I remember from under the tree at Foster Camp and it impresses the doctor every bit as much as it impressed me. He stops flailing and listens to what she's saying in her very precise Catalan and she totally soothes the wild beast. Good job, Rose, you're a star. We get out of the hospital.

Rose hails a taxi, and we all cram into the backseat. Rose and I are too aware of how we don't want to touch one another, so Karkat ends up in the middle. He's pressed up against me, our legs smashed together. I can feel his body heat. Every time he breathes, his ribcage expands a bit. I'm way, way too aware of him and of how we'd kissed in the hotel room. His ass had been like two bags stuffed full of pudding in my hands. I clear my throat and stare out the window. Ibiza looks depressingly G-rated in the harsh light of day.

The Swedish hotties are still absent from my rooms, which is nice, because Rose would have tore a strip off me. Rose thinks the right of a prostitute to sell their body is sacrosanct but the customer is a piece of shit. To her this isn't a contradiction and she's talked circles around me so many times that I know deep down I agree, because my convictions are at best loose and her rhetoric is at worst bulletproof.

Rose starts packing my bag, and that's when things get weird again.

My head is still ringing with her impassioned plea for me not to kill myself, but what happened between us in New York is never far from my mind. I can tell it isn't far from hers, either, because when she finds a pair of my boxers under the table, she kind of blanks out. She just stares down at them, and her lips part a little bit. There's a mechanical clock on one wall, all fancy and old school, and it ticks and ticks and ticks for longer than I'm able to count before Rose's head snaps up and her ponytail swings.

"Pack your own bags," she snaps. "I'll be back."

And then she sweeps out of the room like a queen. A queen pretending that she isn't running from a riot that wants her head and almost managing to be convincing.

God. Poor Rose.

I trudge over and pick up the boxers myself. I'd thrown them in a striptease for the Swedes. Looking back, that's a really fucking embarrassing thing I did, wow. I was paying them to be there and I think they want to see me take my clothes off? I imagine them snorting to one another after I vanished and rolling their eyes. Fucking Americans, they'd say.

Yep, that's me.

Karkat hasn't moved from his position at the door. I feel his eyes on me, studying me closely as I move around the room, gathering all the things that flew to the winds of my squalorly living. If my math is right, I've only been in Ibiza for five days, and only stayed at this hotel for three of them. So it's frankly amazing I managed to fuck the place up this bad. Karkat's probably judging me for this shit. Imagining a dark future where he's the one fishing my waistcoat out from under a couch.

I try my best to just ignore him, but I've never been good at being watched. There's a huge difference between performing for a crowd, which I'm frankly amazing at, and being closely observed doing normal daily shit, which is basically the worst thing I can imagine. The difference is that I can turn on the Dave Strider charm and hide behind my signature smirk and aviators when I'm putting on a show. When I'm just me being me, all I can think of is how exposed I am.

The silence goes on for so long, I'm genuinely fucking surprised when Karkat finally talks.

"I'm not going to fuck you," he says. His tone is belligerent, like he's coming out of the gate with his dukes up, expecting a fight.

What I should do is be cool and explain that it was a huge mistake of me to pick him up in the first place and that the new position Rose had arranged us into would make trying anything even less appropriate than it already was, if _anything_ can be less appropriate than a thirty-six year old man soliciting a teenager. But also, I'm an asshole, and he's clearly looking for a fight, and as I have proven in the last week, I have no self control.

"Wow," I say, putting on my condescending piece of shit voice, "but I paid all that money and didn't get dick. Or ass, I guess, I wasn't really looking for dick."

"Fuck you," he spits, eyes flashing. God damn, too easy.

I shake my head and roll a pair of jeans. I can't even remember wearing jeans since I landed here, huh. Maybe I'd worn jeans on the plane? Fuck, everything is such a blur. "I mean, I gave you a grand and then tipped you like four-hundred percent for jack shit on top of that! Come on, Kitkat. You won't even blow me?"

"Don't fucking call me that, you absolutely insufferable piece of human feces."

"Okay, okay. Fine. A solid handie and we'll call it even."

"Go to hell!" Karkat actually puts his fists up like we're going to come to blows over this, his brow all pulled down over those big brown eyes, and I can't help it. I laugh and he glares and it makes me laugh more. "Stop that!" he snaps. "Cut it the fuck out! This is serious, this is fucking serious! I'm not going to the States just to be your kept boy, okay? Stop laughing! Listen to me! I won't do it, I fucking won't! If I'm just going to fuck assholes in tacky clothes for money, I'll do it here on my own terms. And you know what? We're even as _fuck_! No one has ever been more even! Fuck it, if anything, you owe _me_! I'd consider five thousand a pretty solid first payment for me to save your _fucking_ life!" He stares at me and his eyes go a little wild. " _Stop laughing_!"

I stop laughing.

I shake my head and go back to my packing, chuckling despite myself. Wow, he sure is easy to rile up. I feel a little guilty because I think I hit a real nerve there and, also, come the fuck on Strider, he's seventeen at the most and the thought of him being sexually available to a guy my age for room and board and citizenship actually isn't even a little bit funny. But it's not his situation that I'm laughing at, it's his pure indignance. I can't help it. That _is_ funny.

Yeah, sup, I'm a dick. What's new?

"Don't worry," I say, and I try to sound soothing and sincere. I think I sound like a patronizing asshole. Sincerity has never looked good on me. "For one thing, even I know that the power imbalance has shifted way, way too far for even me to put my dick in it." I sigh. "But more importantly, I... Rose can't know I picked you up. Rose can't ever fucking know. I mean, you've got to understand. Rose knows _everything_. I dodged like fifty bullets that she thought you were my dealer, right? The odds are currently at something like negative ten percent that I got away with this. And if I so much as touch you ever again, they drop astronomically."

Sincerity looks fake and dickish on me, but honesty is honesty and that was pretty fucking honest, so when I shoot a look over my shoulder at Karkat, he looks pretty convinced and no longer is looking like he wants to get into fisticuffs with me.

"Oh," he says, when he catches me looking. I see the wheels in his head cranking around. "I should tell her," he says, and a little wicked smile touches his mouth. "Shit, that would fuck you up. Fuck." He laughs under his breath.

I try not to show that I'm kind of about to piss myself and I shrug. "Fine, sure," I say, and go back to what I was doing. "You do that, but she's definitely going to leave your ass here if she thinks I would fuck it."

I would fuck it, drop of a hat. No, cut that out. New day, new Dave. Dave that doesn't get fresh with kids. Better Dave, really. We've reached the next level of Dave. Let's strive to maintain this superior form of Dave.

"I guess," Karkat says. He doesn't sound too disappointed, which is a relief. He wasn't thinking about it, really. He was just fucking with me. Which, first of all, I deserve. And secondly, kind of makes me grin. I like people who fuck with me. Nobody will, except Rose.

"Is she your sister, or something?" Karkat asks.

I snort. "Definitely 'or something,'" I say firmly.

"Oh. Sorry. I just -- fuck, really? You guys have, like, the _exact_ same nose. That's just fucking weird."

As a kid, I'd wished with all my heart that Rose was my sister. After Foster Camp had ended, I'd gotten home and I'd laid in my shitty cot while the other kids whispered in the dark. It was hot as fuck, so hot sweat ran down my scalp, and I'd stared up at the ceiling that my foster mom had actually bothered to take the time to stick those glow in the dark stars all over. I'd traced patterns in the stars and missed Rose so badly that it ached inside of me. And I thought about how unfair it was that there were so many kids out there with actual families who complained because their dad was too strict or their mom didn't let them watch TV during dinner. And fought with their siblings all the time. Real family, and they just took it for granted. Didn't they know how lucky they were, having a place to belong?

Knowing Rose was out there, across the continent, made it all so much worse, somehow. It wasn't fair that fate or destiny or all those things Rose liked to talk about had given us separate lives, apart from one another, and given us nothing of our own. Rose and I should be a family. I deserved to have that.

It had been a long, long fucking time since I'd thought about that. These days, and for the twenty years that had come before them, I had definitely not wanted Rose to be my sister. I'd wanted something else entirely.

"Did I say something wrong?" Karkat asks, and I try to laugh it off.

"Yeah, kinda. I've got a thing for her."

"Oh," he says. I can tell he's surprised that I picked him up, in that case. Score another for the pure ninja shock power of bisexuality.

"Yeah, but she's fucking gay as hell and isn't into it but I'm like, incapable of getting the fuck over it, and it's a whole thing."

"Oh," he says again. I can tell that he's looking for something helpful to say, which is kind of cool of him, because if he wanted to be a douche about it he could absolutely wreck my shit. I think that he's actually not an asshole. He's just really defensive and lashes out whenever he thinks there's even the possibility that someone is going to fuck with him. Pre-emptive attacks.

"It's cool, don't worry about it," I say. "Like I said, it's a whole thing. Not really news. I deal, more or less, mostly." This is a sentence that would have been barely true a week ago and is a fat fucking lie today, but I feel like if I don't say it it's going to become a _Thing_ and frankly I have enough _Things_ in my life.

My life.

I've spent every second since I woke up in the hospital trying not to think about my life, just low key pushing it down in the back of my head every second. Right now, life isn't torture. I'm not post-credits, anymore, but this is all still in-between. Commercial break? I don't know, metaphor goes here. It's like as long as I'm in Ibiza where I don't know anybody, it's manageable.

LA is waiting for me, waiting for me and Karkat, both, now, I guess. And it's chalk fucking full of people who know me and who I know. People I make nice with every day. People I hate, people I fuck around with, people I troll, people who make money off me, people who make money _for_ me, people who help me _manage_ my money, just. So fucking many people. I honestly can't say for sure whether I care if any of them live or die, and I think they mostly feel the same way about me.

Me as a person, that is. God knows, everyone would be mourning the loss of SB&HJ4, which I've built up in interviews as my most brilliantly stupid Emperor's New Clothes yet, and I actually have zero ideas for. I vaguely entertain the idea of doing a really serious dark and gritty psychological drama, marketing it as another one of my shitflicks, and seeing how long it takes the viewing public to catch on and how they interpret it. Eh. It's a fun idea, but I don't really want to make that movie. God knows if I tried to make something good, even as a joke, everyone would actually just use it to realize that I can't actually make movies for dick.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I fish it out.

TT: Dave?  
TG: hey  
TT: How are you and Karkat?  
TG: were cool. i killed him and am wearing his skin as a suit so thats going well.  
TT: That isn't even a little bit funny. You're experiencing something that is very close to an actual psychotic break from reality. Joking about doing harm to yourself or others is in extremely bad taste right now.  
TG: haha  
TG: okay sorry i guess mom i will take my humour elsewhere  
TT: That's beyond unfair.  
TT: I've always appreciated your sense of humour and you're perfectly aware of that.  
TT: Do you not understand that you can't treat this situation like you'd treat any other?  
TT: I  
TT: Ugh  
TT: This is enormously stupid and I actually may be overreacting. I honestly can't tell. You've run me through the fucking wringer, Dave.

I look down at my phone. I chew at my upper lip, an old habit from when I was a kid, and I sigh.

"Something wrong?" Karkat asks.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm a fucking dickhole, what else is new."

"Well," Karkat says, sounding a bit smug, "I'm not going to disagree."

TG: yeah i know  
TG: sorry i just  
TG: whatever  
TG: sorry  
TT: That's not...  
TT: Oh, Dave.  
TT: This is exactly why Karkat is necessary. You need someone to be at your side and it can't be me. It just can't.  
TG: yeah  
TG: i get it i mean i fucked everything up  
TT: You didn't fuck everything up. I'm every bit as responsible for what happened as you are.  
TG: yeah no i still dont want to talk about that so dont get all up on my dick

I groan the second after I send that one. Someday I will fucking learn to pay attention to how the things I'm saying can sound.

"What?" Karkat asks, and I'm starting to think that he might be kind of a nosy little prick.

"I'm stupid," I say.

"Cool," Karkat agrees. I've really got to stop leaning into this shit with him, fuck.

TG: orrrr some other less loaded elements of my anatomy sure whatever lets pretend i didnt say that  
TG: fuck  
TG: look  
TG: im just saying that i get it i guess and i know why the flight home has to be the last time we see one another for a while  
TT: Yes, about that.  
TT: That's actually why I'm texting, Dave.  
TT: I just don't think I can be physically around you at all, right now. And I don't think that you should be physically around me, either.

Oh.

TT: I've chartered a private jet to direct fly you and Karkat right to Ontario airport. There will be a car waiting for you outside to drive you to your estate.  
TT: I thought it would be best to avoid LAX so that we can keep this as anonymous as possible. As ironic as this is, you might want to not wear sunglasses. It may help conceal your identity.  
TT: I've arranged a phone for Karkat. That will be waiting in the car, as well. My number will be in the contacts and I would prefer if he would call me immediately.  
TT: I want very much for him to stay in close touch with me.  
TT: I think it will help me track your progress.   
TT: You tend to hide what you're feeling or thinking quite well, even from me.  
TT: It's important to me to know that you're doing all right.  
TT: ...  
TT: Dave?

I reach up and angrily wipe the traitorous tear that slipped out of my eye. Fuck you, tear. I don't fucking cry.

TG: ok so hold up let me get this straight  
TG: you lay this fucking mayonnaise level thick and nasty guilt trip on me  
TG: oh no dave dont die how can i live without you think about me how can i go on in this dying apocalyptic world without you here  
TG: and im like whatever ok lets live because rose wants me to live  
TG: and then like fucking three hours later youre telling me like  
TG: oh nm  
TG: you just fly out to the worst place on earth with your teenage babysitter while i go do my own thing and we dont even fucking see each other or fucking speak or like  
TG: ????  
TG: is this for fucking real right now???????  
TT: Dave...  
TG: dude like  
TG: this cannot be an actual thing that is happening  
TT: Dave. Listen.  
TG: you pay for a fucking private jet so you dont have to sit next to me in first class for ten hours like  
TG: holy shit  
TG: you must really hate me  
TT: I don't hate you!  
TT: I could never, ever hate you!  
TT: I love you so much it hurts!  
TT: You keep talking about how you ruined things, how you made a mess of everything. How do you think that I feel?  
TT: The only reason you and I aren't married and living the perfect life that you've always wanted is because of me!  
TT: And after I'd done that to you, condemned you to a life of loneliness, I couldn't do the absolute minimum and tell you no when in a moment of weakness I needed to feel something?  
TT: None of this is your fault!  
TT: All of it is my fault!  
TT: And if I'm around you right now the guilt is going to swallow me whole, and you'll be the one fishing me out of my attempt to end it!  
TT: Do you understand? This isn't about you! You did nothing wrong. It's me. It's been me from the start and that's all I've wanted to say about what happened.

I stare down at my phone. Karkat isn't saying anything, bless him. I feel like I'm going to be sick, honestly, because it's beyond unfair that Rose is blaming herself for this. The irony isn't lost on me, the master of all things ironic. I feel guilty because I think it's my fault that Rose feels guilty because Rose thinks it's her fault. Goddamn. That's almost beautiful in its operatic shittiness.

TG: sorry  
TT: Please don't be sorry.  
TG: no just like  
TG: sorry im so fucking self absorbed i guess  
TT: Dave, all I want right now is for you to be okay.  
TT: All right?  
TT: We have so much ahead of us and you need this time to heal and recover and find out who you want to be and what you want to do.  
TT: And I need to give you that time.  
TT: And, honestly, to take some for myself.  
TT: My week might not have been quite as bad as yours, but I think a judge would have a difficult time ruling.  
TG: haha  
TG: yeah thats true  
TG: should let karkat judge  
TG: winner treats loser to dinner when we see each other again  
TG: wait though but which one of us is the winner and which one is the loser  
TG: let me think about this  
TT: I love you very much, Dave. The jet leaves at 11PM, which is after the sane people go to sleep, but before this island rolls over and shows its vile, neon-coated underbelly to the moon.  
TG: you know im not the pulitzer committee right  
TT: Hush.  
TT: You'll be all right?

I think about it.

TG: yeah maybe  
TT: Well, I suppose I'll take that.  
TT: Goodbye, Dave. Let's be sure to keep in touch in the usual long-distance ways, please?  
TG: yeah ok  
TG: see you when its time to stand against an alien empress who wants to genocide all humanity i guess

She doesn't reply again. I sigh and slip my phone back into my pocket. Well, that's that, I guess. Me and Rose are back to the way it was when we were kids: lots of correspondence, no sharing the same physical location. Shit, makes me nostalgic for those truly asstastic days.

"That was definitely her," Karkat says. "Is she coming back up to subject herself to your awful fucking personality again?"

"Nope," I say. "She's sending us home on a private jet so she doesn't have to be around my awful fucking personality a second longer than strictly necessary."

"...oh," he says. I think he feels a bit bad, though it's hard to tell when he follows it right up with: "Well, shit. I'm so fucking jealous of her right now I could puke!"

"Yeah, yeah," I roll my eyes. I zip my bag shut and turn around so I can sit on it. Karkat has finally relaxed a bit and is leaning against the wall, arms folded, shoulders slouched. He's so shrouded in that hoodie of his, and for a second, something pricks at my memory again.

Turns out, meeting someone while high on a crazy cocktail of drugs and experiencing, in Rose's armchair expertise, a psychotic break, leads your brain to malfunction whenever you look right at them. Something tells me that is going to get really annoying if my synapses don't get in order.

"When are we leaving?" Karkat asks.

I check the clock. "Three hours," I say.

Karkat makes a face. "Fuck. What do we do until then?"

I go to make some depressed comment, and then I put a cork in it. I'm going back to real life. It's time to get the smirk and the shades and the Dave Strider charm back so I can hide behind them, or God fucking knows I won't be able to function at all.

So I hold up the channel changer. "I think I can get porn on this thing," I say with a smirk.

"Wow, suck my dick."

"Only if you want."

"Fuck you!"

"Oh, baby, you keep making all these _promises_..."

It feels familiar and comfortable and it feels like shit.

  



	7. Interlude 2: October, 1984 // You're Judge Johnny Stone from Night Court

  


He'd been sitting in an out of the way alcove and trying to draw when the call came.

"Michael!" his foster mother shouted. As always, she sounded impatient and frustrated. He missed his last foster mother, the one who had put glow in the dark stars on the ceiling of the bedroom he'd shared with the others. But she'd gotten pregnant with her own kid, and she hadn't wanted to take care of a bunch of strays anymore. He and his foster siblings had all gotten rehomed. There were only two of them at this new place, but Dave was pretty sure that neither of them were really wanted. His new foster sister curled her lips and talked about tax breaks. Dave didn't quite understand it, but he thought that he got the basics. These people got something out of them being here that had nothing to do with either of them. They were wanted, but not wanted. Fair enough.

He'd asked them to call him Dave, and they'd looked at him like he was crazy and gone right back to Michael. So he sort of hated them for that alone.

He considered not answering her call. She'd be angry, and maybe do that thing where she gripped him by the shoulders and shook him a bit, but he thought that it might make him feel as if he had some control over the situation. Ignoring her, even if the rebellion didn't amount to anything or last for long, could give him kind of a rush. He liked that.

But,

" _Michael!_ " she echoed herself, and her voice had taken on a whip-crack sharpness. "There's a phone call for you!"

His heart skipped a beat and he scrambled to his feet, leaving his drawings behind. "Coming!" he replied, and scurried to the closest phone.

No one ever called for him. About him, sure. He understood from his foster sister that The System was required to check in on them. Going through the motions, she said in her knowing voice. But _for_ him? Only one person ever dialed their number hoping to talk _to_ Michael/Dave Johnson/Strider.

He picked up the receiver. "Hello?" he spoke breathlessly.

"Hello, Dave." Rose's perfectly moderated voice came through the receiver, and a ball of knotted snakes in his stomach that he hadn't even really known was there uncoiled and eased and he felt a sense of wellness bubble up, spreading to his fingers and toes.

His foster mother sighed. "Twenty minutes, Michael," she said firmly. "I'm expecting a phone call and I don't want you tying up the line."

There was a click as she hung up.

"What a bitch," Dave spat, slumping against the wall. "She's the worst. I can't wait until we get shuffled around again. Anybody is better than this."

"I'm sorry about that, Dave. But I'm afraid I can't talk about it. I need you to do something very important."

He stood up straighter. Important? And Rose's voice sounded a bit... frantic? No, that was way too strong a word. Tight around the edges. Frayed a bit. Controlled and calm, but focused and determined.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"I need you to go run out into the street." The way she said it reminded him of the way a 911 operator would talk. Like, panicking a bit inside but trying to keep someone else calm. Him. Trying to keep him calm, because she just told him to run into the road like a crazy person. This was a busy street. Was she crazy? "Right now."

"Um," Dave said. He really didn't want to do that. But Rose sounded so...

"It's so important, Dave. It's the most important thing you can imagine. I'm not even allowed to be making this call right now, but I'm doing it because this matters a whole lot."

Dammit, she sounded so convincing. Shit. He was going to get in _so_ much trouble, if he didn't get killed.

"Why?" he asked. There was a whine at the edge of his voice and he really hated that. He wanted to trust Rose and not be afraid. He wanted to be what she needed him to be. He twisted his hand in the phone cord.

"I don't know," she said, and for the first time, she sounded actually kind of afraid herself. "I just know that there's no hope for our future if you don't do this."

He gulped. He didn't want to. He asked, trying to be calm, "So just... run into the road, and that's it?"

"No. When someone asks if you're okay, you need to tell them exactly this in exactly these words," she took a breath. Recited them.

Dave went over them three times in his head, and then spoke breathily into the receiver. "Okay."

"Don't hang up. I'll be here the whole time. I promise."

That was what bolstered him as he put the phone down on the table and velcroed his sneakers on and crept past his foster mother smoking in the kitchen and make it out the front door. Rose was just on the line, almost like she was right there with him, and he kept reciting that to himself up until the moment when he took a deep breath, barrelled into the busy street, and squealing tires and honking horns made a cacophony of sound around him.

His eyes were tightly closed and his arms were outstretched and he was just waiting for something awful to happen to him, and why had he trusted Rose? Rose had clearly gone crazy! But no one hit him, nothing happened, and then he felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Blinking against the harsh sunlight, he squinted at the face that towered above him. 

Well. Not towered. He was hitting some growth spurts and the old man who looked down at him wasn't very tall. Dave shielded his eyes from the sunlight and something seemed to contract a bit, for a second. He knew this old guy, he did. Only he shouldn't be so old. His hair should be jet black, not grey, and his blue eyes should look clear and --

The picture snapped into focus. He'd been wrong -- the man shouldn't be younger. He was supposed to look exactly like this.

"You're on the TV," Dave said, blinking. "You're Judge Johnny Stone from Night Court."

"Son," Johnny Stone said gently, "we've got to get you out of the road, here! You put yourself in a lot of danger."

Dave nodded mutely as cars swerved and honked around them. Johnny Stone held up his hand to traffic and shook his head and they kind of miraculously stopped as the actor lead Dave off the road, back to the sidewalk. The shiney black sedan that had disgorged the tv star pulled off, and Dave suddenly realized that he hadn't delivered Rose's message at all.

Johnny Stone had a hand gently resting against Dave's back, and Dave danced a few steps ahead, up the walk, and turned around. Rose was trusting him, and he didn't understand her message at _all_ , but she promised she'd be with him and he promised he'd do this thing she thought was so important. He took a deep breath and blurted: "You need to stay a Crocker!"

The old man blinked, and then something twisted at his lips.

Dave forged on. "I know you feel guilty that you didn't go with your sister. I know that you were too scared to leave after Halley died. And I know that now you're worried about your son and if he should grow up in this family and if you did the right thing. But you _have_ to stay with the Crocker family. He won't grow up the way you want him otherwise."

Johnny Stone looked down at him. His clouded blue eyes were shining a little. Was he going to cry? Geez, Dave hoped not. He didn't want a bigtime tv star crying on the front walk. That felt really awkward.

"Why do you say all of that, son?" Judge Stone asked. Dave knew he wasn't actually a judge and his name probably wasn't actually Johnny Stone, but all he could see was the funny guy from the TV.

"Uh," Dave said, and rubbed at his nose to hide his embarrassment. "I don't know? Someone just told me that I had to say it."

Johnny's eyes narrowed and he blinked away the tears he hadn't quite shed. "Who?" he asked, and an edge crept into his voice. "What did she look like?"

"No, it was, um," Dave swallowed hard. Had he done something wrong? Was he allowed to tell? He had to tell the truth. A lie could only make it worse. "It was just a friend of mine. Rose. It was just Rose. She's my age. She's blonde and likes to wear headbands. It's nothing. She just told me it was important that you hear it."

The front door burst open and Dave's foster mother boiled down the front steps. "Michael!" she screamed. She actually sounded a bit worried, which lit a tiny coal of warmth in Dave's belly, but mostly she sounded furious. "You stupid boy, what did you do? You left the phone off the hook and the neighbour called over and all that ruckus in the road was because of you -- what's gotten into you?"

He was definitely about to get the shakes, if not a whole lot worse. And Rose was gone. For some reason, Dave sought Judge Stone. He gave him a desperate look. Which was stupid. He was just being dumb. Why would a bigtime TV star do anything to save him?

But Johnny Stone put a hand on Dave's shoulder and fixed his foster mother with a big, charming grin. "Hello, there, ma'am!" he said, all jovial and happy. His voice was this reedy sort of tenor that seemed a lot goofier than it ever had on TV. Dave liked it. "Your son here just helped me out of a scrape! My driver was hopelessly lost!"

Even Dave could see that it was a really damn terrible explanation. Dave had run through a lane of traffic and threw himself in front of Judge Johnny Stone's black sedan to... give directions?

"He isn't my son," she said testily. "And do you mean to tell me that..." Her eyes scanned their visitor, and then Dave's transgression was forgotten. "Aw, hell!" She darted forward and her hand flew to her mouth. "God be _good_ , you're Johnny Crocker!"

Just like that, the dumb inconsistent illogical story was forgotten. Somehow, against all reasonable logical reality, the actor was easily coaxed into staying for supper, bought them all popsicles when the truck went by, and after he left, it was like Dave's big dumb roadrush had never happened. His foster mother called everyone she knew to tell them that _Johnny fucking Crocker_ had told her that she made the best biscuits and gravy he'd had the whole time he was in Texas. Dave eavesdropped and he couldn't stop thinking about Johnny Crocker and, more importantly, about Rose.

He kept to himself, even when his foster sister tried to pull him into a conversation about what had really happened. They weren't that close, which she proved when she got annoyed at him holding back and stole his popsicle, which hurt a bit, but whatever. She could go to hell. After everyone had fallen asleep, Dave crept down to the living room. He pulled the phone as far as he could out the back door and onto the porch, curling into a corner with the receiver between his shoulder and ear.

Rose answered on the first ring.

"Are you all right?" she asked in a rush. She actually sounded really worried. Dave felt warmth spread through him, all the way. She actually cared.

"Yeah," Dave said, whispering loudly because if anyone caught him making a long distance call, he was going to be deep in the shit. "Nobody hit me. Not even the bitch."

"I wish you wouldn't use that word," Rose chided. She was speaking quietly, too. It was the foster father, for her, not the mother. She didn't like to talk about it. "It's very demeaning to all women. Some books I've been reading say that language like that is a source of a lot of problems in the world."

"Don't be so sensitive," Dave groaned, but he felt guilty anyway. Rose knew better than he did. He internally promised to maybe stop saying it. At least where she could hear.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"I mean, who did you talk to? You didn't get hurt, did you?"

Cicadas and crickets sang around him as Dave took a second to actually process what she was saying. And then, his voice squeaking a bit, he barked into the receiver, "You don't _know_?"

"No," she said. "I haven't a clue."

"Oh my god, Rose!" he gasped. "You sent me into traffic and almost got my hide tanned by the -- by _her_ , and you didn't even know why? I thought you somehow had heard from somewhere that it was Johnny Crocker!"

"It was Johnny Crocker?" Rose asked. She actually sounded kind of excited. "From _Night Court_? Oh, wow!"

"If you didn't know, what was that even about?"

Rose sighed, and then the line went silent. He could hear her breathing, and himself breathing, amplified by the phone. He worked his pinky finger between the coils of the cord and tried to see how far down he could get it. And then he got bored. "Rose?"

"I don't know," Rose said, and he could hear her frustration in her voice. She was confused and she hated being confused. She wanted to know all the answers. "I don't understand what happened. It was just like this... this surge of knowledge. That I had to call you and I had to tell you to do and say that, or it was lost."

" _What_ was lost?" Dave demanded.

"Everything," Rose said softly.

They sat in silence again. Dave slapped a mosquito on his elbow and was really aware of how much these dumb silent seconds were costing him. He was definitely going to get his hide tanned when the phone bill came in.

"So," he said finally, testing the syllables on his tongue. "Do you, like... have ESP or something?"

"Maybe?" Rose said. She laughed quietly. "I don't think so. I wish I did. That would be very dramatic, don't you think? It would be like something from one of my books. I wish I lived in a world where I had ESP. No, I don't think it's so exciting. I think... I think..."

Another long silence.

"Rose?" he said.

"I don't know," she said. For the first time since they'd met, she sounded actually really lost and confused. It sounded wrong on her. Lost and confused was his territory. "I really don't know."

"So..." Dave craned his neck to try and look up at the stars, but the light pollution was just too bad. He missed Foster Camp. This family didn't want to pay for him to go. It could be years before he saw Rose or the stars again. "So what did it even do? Telling him all of that?"

"I don't know," Rose repeated, and then quietly, laughed. "Saved the world, maybe?"

The next day, Johnny Crocker was on the news. He said that while acting and comedy were still his primary goals, he was accepting a position in lower management at his mother's company. Just on the side. To make a future in the Crocker name for his son.

Dave watched it, his brow furrowed.

Part of him still couldn't help but think that Johnny should be a lot younger.

  



	8. I'm Living Out In LA

  


I check the coffee machine. It's gurgling like it's going through it's death throes, but still no coffee. I tap my foot. I fold my arms. My clothes are comfy as fuck, so I run my hands down my torso and squirm a bit against the fabric. What the fuck am I wearing? Dolce?

My phone buzzes. I fish it out of my pocket.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

CG: DAVE? WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?  
CG: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST LEFT. IT'S FUCKING FREEZING IN HERE. MY WALKPODS ARE NUMB.  
CG: LOOK.  
CG: LOOK IF YOU'RE REGRETTING EVERYTHING THAT'S FUCKING FINE, OKAY, BUT I HOPE YOU'LL ACTUALLY SAY IT TO MY FACE INSTEAD OF JUST FUCKING CRAWLING OFF INTO THE WOODS LIKE SOME WOUNDED BARKBEAST. LIKE, I THINK I'VE EARNED THAT MUCH AT LEAST?

I have no idea who this is or what's going on, but my thumbs are already flying across the keyboard. It's too small. Shit. Is that an iPhone 3? Damn. That's too recent to be ironic or retro and too outdated to be anything else so it's just tacky as fuck. Note to self, pick up an iPhone 4 at earliest convenience.

TG: jesus  
TG: fuck dude  
TG: shits cool  
TG: shits mega way cool dont get yourself in a knot  
TG: im in the common room everything is chill  
TG: beyond chill  
TG: next level chill  
CG: OH.  
CG: OKAY.  
CG: SORRY. I JUST -- UM, YEAH. I JUST PANICKED FOR A SECOND THERE.  
CG: AFTER, UH, THAT. AND I WAKE UP AND YOU'RE JUST FUCKING *GONE* AND I JUST FLIPPED I GUESS?  
TG: dude for real its all good  
TG: better than good  
TG: its fucking dope as balls  
TG: i woke up and was groggy as fuck you were zonked right out and you know i hate waking you up when you actually manage to get some sleep  
TG: i just ducked out to get some coffee  
TG: taking a bite out of the groggy  
TG: get it where it lives  
TG: fuckin wreck that grog  
CG: OKAY I FUCKING GET IT, YOU WERE GROGGY AND YOU WANTED COFFEE. LET'S MOVE ON.  
TG: everythings like  
TG: super rad ok  
TG: dont freak out  
TG: cause uh  
TG: that was great  
TG: you were great  
CG: ... REALLY?  
TG: fuck yes

The coffee machine starts spewing the worst smelling coffee I've had touch my nostrils since my ignoble childhood and I glance up from my phone to see it barfing into the cup. I feel a hand on my shoulder and whirl, looking for the source, but there's no one there. Just a dark room humming with machinery. But I swear, someone is touching me again, and I'm shaking.

"Dave."

I look down at the phone.

CG: SO...  
CG: ARE YOU... COMING BACK?

I feel myself smile and go to type something... reassuring? I think? But a crack runs down the -- vision --- dream ------ memory -- and I blink and blink again and Karkat is right in my face and he's got both hands on my shoulders and he's shaking me.

"What the fuck," he says, lips twisted and brow furrowed into a deep scowl. "You sleep like a fucking corpse. Get the hell off your ass, we're here."

I groan and reach up to run a hand through my hair. It's a pleasant surprise to feel it clean and fluffy. Nothing matters, sure, but being filthy had gotten pretty old.

I sit up and Karkat moves back. The jet Rose chartered is classy as balls. She'd been kind enough to leave the minibar intact, and I remember drinking basically the entire thing while Karkat watching disapprovingly from under his bangs. Then I'd chugged two litres of water so I wouldn't wake up puking -- trick from one of my borderline alcoholic foster dads, thanks for the one piece of wisdom you ever gave me, asshole -- and then passed out in my chair like a true rich white person on a transcontinental flight.

I look out a window. Yep. We're definitely here.

A porter helps get our bags -- Karkat only has a tattered backpack -- and the car Rose talked about is waiting for us right on the tarmac. It's a pretty mild day for SoCal, but the asphalt of the tarmac still fucking radiates heat up like it's trying to cook our feet. A normal flight is disgorging its passengers down the runway, and I can tell people are trying to find out who just came out of the nice jet, snapping photos with their phones. I hold up a hand and give my best smirk, just in case someone recognizes me without my shades or one of my suits. Karkat continues to scowl and hustles me toward the car.

It isn't one of my drivers. I'm so grateful it hurts, because I'm not sure I can face anyone I actually know yet. At the same time, I'm weirdly disappointed. There's this sense of dread just coiled up in my gut, and I think maybe it'd calm the fuck down a bit if I actually faced what was coming. Every time the inevitable gets pushed back, the coils get tighter. It's like I'm a wind-up pocket watch and every stay of execution winds me tighter. My gears are grinding and maybe I'll break.

But it's a really fucking nice car.

The AC is going at a nice, even clip, and the seats are leather, and it feels weirdly... good, to slip into the trappings of my normal life. It shouldn't. I had just run the fuck away from this life. I'd literally just tried to _end_ this life. Humans are fucking weird. We're creatures of habit to a fucking dangerous degree.

I sit back in my seat. I see the driver adjust his mirror to look at me and Karkat, but he doesn't ask where we're headed before he starts the car up and we're on the move. Rose has this all sorted. Rose always does.

Karkat finds a box. There are two smaller boxes inside, each with one of our names on them. Karkat hands me mine and sets about getting his own own. It has one of those clear, round, demonically adherent stickers on it, and I amuse myself watching him tear the box open with fingers and teeth like he's a fucking animal. Fucking adorable, in all honesty.

I peel the sticker on mine, like a goddamn adult, and there's a new iPhone 4S inside. Fucking nice. I hadn't upgraded, yet. There's a note.

Dave. Enjoy this shiny new toy built by children in China. You monster.  
All my love.

I snort. But my eyes linger over the words. She typed this note up after everything that had happened, and against all odds, it... actually does make me feel better. I'm still worthy of all Rose's love. That isn't nothing.

I load the thing up. Rose has it all ready to go, complete with my usual password, of course. I start to sync with the cloud. Karkat is looking at his own phone like it's an alien device. He's pressing the screen like he needs to depress an actual button and so forth. It's kind of mesmerizing.

"Never had a phone before?" I ask.

"Shut the fuck up," he replies automatically, and I chuckle. Yeah, fucking bullseye. Rose had identified his accent as Moroccan. Karkat hadn't argued. Did they have cell towers and iPhones in Morocco? Was this like a poor children in Africa situation? It's close enough to Spain to throw a rock across the water, but that doesn't mean dick, really, and I'm definitely fucking white enough to not have a clue.

He raises the phone to his ear.. Who's he -- oh, yeah. I remember what Rose had said. She put her number in his phone. Told me to tell him to ring it. He's calling Rose, right now. I fight down this crazy, stupid surge of jealousy.

I turn to look out the window. We've found some back way off the tarmac and I lean back in my seat and try to enjoy the sight of mountains again. California isn't home. If I'm honest, absolutely nowhere is home. The closest thing is a camp for foster kids in Indiana that's been shut down and paved over for a decade and change, now. But I like the way the San Bernardino Mountains look, and there's some comfort in that.

"H-hello?" Karkat says. He sounds nervous. He shoots me a weird little look and then clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, he's fine."

I grin at him and wave. His brows pull down and he turns bodily away from me.

"Yes. Um, what do you mean 'ostentatious?' ...okay. Okay, that's fine." He sounds almost meek as he takes his orders from Rose. I strain my ears, trying to see if I can hear a tinny thread of her voice, but I get nothing. "What do I tell him? No -- I just mean --" He's swallowing his own words as Rose fills his ear. I can tell he's getting a bit frustrated. "Okay! Okay, fine. Whatever. It's not that complicated." He turns halfway back to me. Looks like he's chewing on a real dilemma, and then seems to make up his mind. He rolls his eyes.

Oh, shit! I laugh with genuine delight. "Rose, your teen suicide watch rolled his eyes at you!" I shout.

"Fuck you!" Karkat snaps at me, blushing deeply, and I cackle. "No! Yes. Yes." His eyes focus on me and there's a gleam of satisfaction in them. "Why yes, he _is_ a fucking inoperable tumour blighting my miserable fucking life! ... Yes. Yes. All right. Okay. Bye." And then he peers at the phone like someone's grandma, trying to figure out how to hang it up.

"She's the best," I say with a sigh. I try to make it come out super sarcastic, but there's a little more sincerity than I'd really like.

Luckily, Karkat doesn't know me well enough to catch it and he just snorts. He seems satisfied that the phone is not currently transmitting what he's saying and tucks it into the pocket of his worn jeans.

They're the same ones he wore at the hospital. I wonder what's actually in his bag. Our taxi had stopped in front of a run down apartment building in a slum before we'd gotten on the plane. He'd been in for about two minutes, tops. Is the backpack just crammed with booty shorts and mesh shirts and a makeup bag? Does he own anything else? A whole bunch more questions shoot off from those like branches and leaves, and I realize there's actually a whole lot to wonder about a teenage hooker from Morocco who ended up in Ibiza and knows perfect English.

I let that stew in my head for a long while. The mountains are beautiful in the background. The city is the city in the foreground. "Hey," I say, breaking the silence. "How old are you, really?"

I'd asked him in the hotel. Not mine. The one he'd taken me to, when I'd still intended to fuck him as one last hurrah. This time, I'm hoping for the truth. Something real.

His gaze flicks my way and he gazes at me from beneath his long, long lashes. Then he looks away. "Seventeen," he says, voice barely a murmur.

I turn it over in my head. I think that it's probably the truth. "When's your birthday?"

Karkat twists to glare at me. "Oh my god," he says. "Do you want to see my fucking birth certificate, too?" And then his eyes narrow. "Or is this about me being _legal_ so you can --?"

"Whoa." I hold up my hands. "This is about me being _curious_! That's all!" I mean, we've already way crossed the line of _morality_ here, and legality doesn't matter so much. He's currently an illegal immigrant, I don't think me fucking him is going to be what breaks the camel's back on this.

Karkat glares at me for a really long time. It starts to get kind of uncomfortable. And then he slumps back. "June 23rd," he says. "1994."

In 1994, I had been nineteen. I had just bought my first car. It had been a 1980 Toyota Corolla. I had driven it all the way from Houston to Massachusetts so I could visit Rose. It was her first year at Harvard. I'd sung along to I Saw the Sign by Ace of Base all the way to Pennsylvania, when the tape deck had eaten the cassette.

So, yeah.

That's how old I am compared to Karkat.

Like, old as balls.

Note to fucking self: please don't fuck this kid.

I get the feeling that he's pretty much over me right now. He's busy with his phone, and I take a second to study his face. He's concentrating really hard. It's like he's learning a completely new skill -- which he is -- and there's something to be said for the way he totally immerses himself in it. I shake myself and look down at my own phone.

My cloud is synced.

There are something like two hundred emails, texts from tons of Hollywood bigwigs, thirty voicemails. I don't want to deal with any of this, fuck, but I page through, keeping my eye open for any sign that rumours of my suicide attempt had hit the news. Nothing. This is the benefit of everyone knowing you under an alias, I guess. Nobody thought to look and see if some asshole named Michael Johnson killed himself in Europe. There _is_ a whole lot of "where the fucking hell are you, Strider," though. My google alerts for myself are just crazy. The article Rose talked about on the Daily Mail is especially illuminating. Ben sure is dragging me through the mud. Whatever. I've earned it.

There's also a news story suggested to me from Time. They got the honour of being the first allowed inside of the Empress's battleship. The report goes on at length in a tone somewhere between confused horror and scholarly excitement about how, despite its titanium shell, the interior seems to be mostly organic. I shudder. I don't want to think about some fish alien with a spaceship made out of mucus right here, right now, destroying earth and humanity and the future and my life.

I shut my phone off -- deal with it later -- and close my eyes.

I swear they're only shut for three seconds, but when I open them again we're cruising down a familiar road lined with palm trees. Everything is green and blue and ostentatious. The people walking are thin, gorgeous, stylish and blonde. When I glance at Karkat, I see him pressed up against the window with his mouth hanging wide open.

"Welcome to Beverly Hills," I say with a smirk, and he twists and peers at me as if he's seeing me from the first time.

"Shit," he says. "Are you a movie star?"

"Well. I mean. In the very strictest definition," I drawl, "yes."

Karkat mouths _holy shit_ and goes back to staring out the window. Probably saw Natalie Portman or something. No big. She sent me a limited edition Padme Amidala action figure for Christmas last year with a note about how much she'd love to be in one of my flicks. I'd actually considered it -- she could totally make it work -- before I'd decided I was done making movies forever.

The truth is, I fucking hate Beverly Hills. It's a shallow place filled with shallow people. Not the actors, exactly, though some of them can queue up to bite me, sure. But the culture of parasites that swarm around the actors, hoping for some of that glitz and glam to rub off onto them. The trends, the blogs, the star-tours, the tourists, the heat, the beaded jewelry, the yoga...

I grew up in Texas. Make no mistake -- I fucking hate Texas, too. But it's a more fond hate. I hate Texas like I hate all the bad-but-not-awful foster parents I've had. Like, honestly, fuck that shit for messing my head up and also for just being objectively fucking terrible, but hey, it's a part of me. Worn jeans, cookouts, oppressive fucking heat, nobody taking their goddamn Christmas lights down, flies everywhere, and that fucking confederate flag on everything from bikinis to picnic tables to actual flagpoles-- that's in my DNA, man. Fuck that shit, but also, it's _my_ shit.

My hate for LA is the hate of an outsider. I don't get it. I can and do blend into this world by becoming a parody of the people who live in it, but it doesn't make sense to me. Ribs and screen doors and friendly neighbourhood racism? I understand that. Fairtrade latte macchiatos with soy milk at a hipster cafe you saw on your lifestyle guru's blog? What the fuck is this shit.

But.

But despite all of that, I've lived in this glitzy, preposterous shithole with all of its many layers of posing for long enough that I feel I'm part of it. Which I usually hate, but seeing Karkat Vantas looking like fucking Cinderella at the ball, I get kind of a rush. I like the thought that he associates this glamour with me. I like the thought that I could show it to him and impress the fuck out of him. I start looking forward to when we get to the estate.

It's a weird feeling. I haven't actually looked forward to something since Rebranding Day.

And then I think about it a little harder and my coils of dread go fucking boa constrictor tier. My estate has a cook. Housekeeper. Security. My handlers, who I especially don't want to deal with. It's filled with all these people who either don't know what I've been going through, or _do_ know and then there's that, and...

I swallow hard.

I can't. Shit, I fucking _can't_.

"Karkat," I say. Something in my voice must tell him that I'm having a moment, cause when he looks at me, his eyes are wide and unguarded. He looks worried. It tickles at my heart.

"What?" he says. He tries to sound annoyed but I can tell he's actually concerned.

It feels... nice.

"Can you, uh. I can't -- I don't think I can deal. With... um, anything. Fuck. Rose... Fuck."

"Oh..." Karkat swallows and looks away guiltily. "Uh, sorry. I didn't say anything, I didn't think... are you worried about your staff? Rose sent them all away. Uh, except the guy who controls your gate."

"Jesus," I say. Relief floods through me.

And then, unfairly, annoyance.

I get my phone out.

TG: ok  
TG: this is officially fucking stupid  
TG: are you scheduling my interviews too  
TG: approving my projects  
TG: watching my audition tapes  
TG: cutting my rolls  
TT: I thought you weren't making any more movies.  
TG: im not but maybe you have other ideas  
TT: Dave.  
TG: ugh  
TG: look i know youre trying to take care of me but its fuckin weird that you apparently have every aspect of my life micromanaged for me and i havent even gotten back to it yet  
TT: Dave, honestly.  
TT: Stop being a child.  
TT: You're not well. Yes, I've dipped my fingers into your life and subsumed your role in your decision making processes. It's called being helpful.  
TT: If you decide you want your staff after all, you only have to make the call, and they will be there.  
TT: I told Karkat to communicate all of this to you.  
TG: oh my god rose fuck this  
TT: What did I do wrong, now?  
TG: i dont fucking know  
TG: i just dont want to deal with this  
TT: With your staff?  
TG: with anything  
TT: Well.  
TT: Then it's a good thing I've set things up in such a way that you have very little on your plate to actually deal with.  
TT: And that I'm here to help you slowly introduce more and more complicated elements back into your life, with Karkat as an intermediary.  
TT: I assume you can at least handle being buzzed into your estate by the only human being on the premises?

Why the fuck does she always have to be so goddamn reasonable? I stare at my phone, and then, in a fit of pique, shove it into my pocket without responding. Because the only thing to say is "yes Rose you're right and I'm a toddler" and I'm not willing to debase myself quite that low, no matter _how_ accurate.

We're about to get to my place, anyway. Sunset Boulevard has disappeared and now we're well into celebrity residence territory. As soon as the car pulls up, people are going to take notice. Dave Strider's missing and here's a car pulling up to his place. So I decide to just lean into it. I fumble through my bags. My best set of aviators is, I think... somewhere back on a beach? A club? I don't know. I think I fucked some guy's girlfriend and he broke them. Jesus. What a week. But I find a pair of bulky shades to wear while driving and when I slip those on and tuck my hair back, I feel very Strider-esque despite the t-shirt and jeans.

The car pulls up to the gate. I wink at Karkat -- he can't see me, probably, but it's the thought that counts -- and swing on out of the car. I keep my eyes straight ahead, focused on the goal, but I saunter and stroll as I do it. I feel eyes on me. I'm on stage. So I perform.

I salute the driver when I reach the intercom. I hit the button. "Yo," I say. "Back in town."

"One moment, Mr. Strider."

The gate swings open.

I can't see anyone watching, but damn, do I ever feel them. They're whispering behind their hands. Updating Facebook statuses. Tweeting it. They're snapping pics, putting them up on Instagram. And suddenly, I think -- fuck. Why not. I lean down so the driver can hear me. "Hey," I say. "Can you swing up to the house and drop our bags off? Thanks, dude." I don't wait for confirmation, just open the side door and haul Karkat out like he's a kitten and I'm cat-mom or something.

He squirms like a kitten, too, but his protests die when he looks ahead and sees my property. Or at least, the tip of the iceberg -- the long drive flanked with verdant greenery down to the three storey, sprawling estate. Beyond that? Twenty-five fucking acres of palatial excess.

It's ironic. Kind of. Also, it's just a fucking nice place to live, because why not? I paid my dues to the dirt and live daily with my terrible empty life. I deserve four swimming pools.

"Fucking fuck," Karkat breathes. And then, barely missing a beat. "You fucking bastard. You really stiffed me on that tip."

I laugh and start down the walk. "Come on," I say. "Let's breathe that smoggy LA air and stretch our legs out." I put my hand on his back, just to nudge him along. Calculated move. By the time we've taken three steps, twenty-two gossip columns are already speculating.

  



	9. I Drive A Fast Car

  


I point out all sorts of exciting things while we make our way down the quarter-mile driveway. See, look. From here, you can see the ivy-covered gazebo. Check it out. If you stand right here, you can see the guest house rising up way over beside the estate, to our left. Okay, but see here? If you turned off the road here and hiked up this hill, you'd get to this long, narrow, deep pool. There are a thousand LEDs installed halfway down that turn the water into a fucking rainbow lightshow. It's kind of underwhelming in the daytime, but shit, Karkat, you should see it at night.

For his part, Karkat mostly seems too overwhelmed to really comment on any of it. But I can tell he's impressed, because his eyes are wide as saucers and he looks around in all directions. His mouth never closes for a second, just hangs semi-open.

My stomach starts coiling into knots as we get close to the estate, and I have to remind myself over and over that Rose had all my staff kicked to the curb except the guy at the gatehouse. Bless Rose. Fucking bless. All my irrational annoyance at having her manage me is completely gone by the time we reach the circle of pavement curling protectively around the two story fountain in front of my house. Dusk is just starting to settle in. The lights are coming up all over my estate, including the ones in the fountain.

"This is fucking insane," Karkat says, and he just sounds like he's about to fall over. "You're a fucking parody of a human being. This is absolutely fucking bonkers, you know that?"

Yeah, I actually do. That's the thing about being a surrender baby and growing up in a comedically escalating series of terrible foster homes -- you can truly _appreciate_ the over the top excess of this sort of lifestyles of the rich and famous bullshit. That's kind of part of the statement I'm making. There are some parts of it that aren't a statement, and I really just like having a bowling alley in my goddamn house. Who wouldn't?

We go in through the garage, because I'm still not done showing off. I can't help it. The people I surround myself with tend to be numb to this whole in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree shit. It bounces off of them. They don't see the beautiful irony of a kid who grew up in Texas squalor living like this, because it's normal to them, and they aren't impressed by the unironic comforts and splendour, either, because... it's normal to them. Of course I live like this. I'm a living legend. I'm redefining what 'movie star' means. I'm blurring the lines between A-List Actor and the hidden, respectable, but invisible man behind the camera. The same people who imagine and admire all this postmodern symbolism in my dumb movies miss all of the _actual_ meaning in my palatial estate. When _they_ see that I've got twelve cars, they nod to themselves. Well, they say. Seems legit. 

They definitely don't yell "Holy fuck!" and throw themselves toward the closest Benz with eyes as big and bright as moons.

Karkat looks over all of the cars. His eyes just keep getting bigger and bigger, until I'm grinning outright. When he's finally checked out the last one on the line, he turns back to me and shouts across the garage. "Okay. Time to settle the fuck up, Dave Strider. Who the fuck are you?"

"Guess my movies aren't a big deal in Morocco." I laugh.

He trails his fingers along each of the hoods as he makes his way back. "So you're an actor," he says, but there's a furrow in his dark brow. "I'm not so sure about that. I like American movies a lot, and I don't recognize you."

I shake my head. "Not an actor. Director. I --" My phone starts buzzing in my pocket and I hold up a finger to Karkat as I fish it out. Rose, probably, checking on me to see if I...

Ugh.

Caller ID informs me that it's not Rose at all. It's fucking David Fincher, who thinks my movies are a commentary on the excess of the modern age and a nuanced statement on auteur theory and likes to pretend that we're friends because we kind of share a name. He's got some new flick coming out next month, I think. Rose has been talking about it. Adaptation of some Swedish book. I can hear her voice in my ear, scolding me. _It's been an international best-seller in many languages. The film is so unnecessary. A remake of the doubtlessly superior Swedish version. How do you not know the title, Dave? Do you listen to anything I say? Do you even follow your own industry?_

All of this, of course, is just to distract myself as my new phone keeps buzzing in my hand. I have to decide, like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix, whether to press the green button or the red button. Fincher is real-world shit. He's someone I know. He's the first connection I might draw back to my real life. Once I answer, I can't take it back.

But if I don't?

I mean, when will I?

Karkat sighs impatiently. "No way. What the fuck kind of director lives like this?" he asks. "I think you're pulling my leg, asshole. Who the fuck are you _really_?"

And him crashing in on my internal monologue makes it really easy to hit the red button and slip the phone back into my pocket. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That's the name of the book/movie.

"Yeah, well," I smirk down at him. "I'm kind of a special case." I turn and motion him forward.  
"Come on."

He grumbles something about not appreciating my vague teasing self-important bullshit, but goes real quiet again when we come into the foyer. Crystal chandelier, dual winding staircases, dual nude statues flanking the entrance to the grand dining room. While I put in the code for the alarm so the police don't show up, he stops just between the two statues, gazing outwards. If you stand right there, the door to the back patio and the long rainbow swimming pool is framed perfectly. All of LA is spread out on the skyline, which is turning bruised tones of purple and pink as the sun sets behind us.

"Shit," he breathes, and then comes back to himself and scurries after me when I start making my way up the staircase.

He says he likes American movies, right? So I take him into the viewing room, which he'll probably appreciate. It's all set up and lit like a real theatre, only the seating is like the world's comfiest living room, all big plush red couches overstuffed and perfect for falling asleep on. He exclaims as we enter and darts forward.

My phone buzzes again.

This time, it's my publicist. I don't... hate her. She's nice, really. Gregarious and pleasant and whatnot. But she's so wrapped up in my image, my image, my image, that being around her is exhausting. She's always rattling on about how my life has to be a narrative, how every aspect of what I show the public has to support the legend of Dave Strider, brilliant billionaire auteur who pulled himself up from nothing and may or may not be joking about the whole thing. And it chafes. For one thing, lady, I _invented_ that fucking narrative, I don't need you telling me how to do it right. For another thing, my narrative is shit, it's shit and you don't know dick about me so fuck off.

Red button.

"This is brain-meltingly stupid," Karkat says. He's standing before me with body language and tone that's almost accusatory, like he's calling me out. "Who the fuck actually _lives_ here?"

I flash him a grin. "Me," I say, and I turn and head out. He curses and follows on my heels.

Chimes go off through the speakers that run through the place, and I faintly hear the front door open and then shut.

My security people are gone, the alarm is still off, and my brain goes white with static. All I can think is -- she's here. The Empress, Betty Crocker, she's here, in my house. The alarm is off, my security personnel are gone and she found me. I'm moving before I'm aware of it, a thin whining noise high in my ears and my heart pounding like a drum and blood rushing through me. I hit the bannister at the top of the winding staircase and look down, feeling, weirdly enough, like I'm ready for a fight, and...

And the driver from the car looks up at me.

Oh.

He's carrying our bags and he gently puts them down on the marble floor. "Will that be all, Mr. Strider?" he asks, and I realize with a hysterical case of the giggles that he's hanging around, just making a bunch of noise, trying to be heard, because he wants his tip.

Jesus.

I can't even explain why I was so sure it was her. I tip the guy big money and he goes away and I'm standing in the foyer with our bags around my feet like prostrate worshippers and I try to figure out what weird instinct had kicked into gear, there. Yeah, Rose has said that she and I would have some role in resisting her, but she hadn't given any impression that the Empress _knew_ about that. I feel like she probably would have come after us first thing, if so. Like, she'd been here since the 20s, right? Why not suffocate Rose and I in our cribs? No, there's no reason at all to think that she's targeting us.

So...

What?

And what did I think coming at her like that was even going to do? Why not hide? Did I think I was going to... what, get into a brawl with her? An alien empress destined to exterminate humanity? Not fucking likely. But still... still, my fingers had itched and I think that I actually thought I might take her?

Fuck.

"This place is crazy," Karkat's voice echoes through the foyer.

I look up and he's standing at the bannister I'd thrown myself against so quixotically. I feel for a second like we're Romeo and Juliet-ing. Like this a weird scene from some noir movie where I'm a cop showing up to inform him that his rich husband has died.

" _You're_ crazy," he reiterates. "I found a hallway that has a forest in it. Like... it's a fucking forest. There's soil and trees and bushes and shit. What the fuck? Why are there fucking _trees_? We're inside, douchebag!"

"You don't think it's pretty?" I ask, fluttering my eyelashes.

"I think it's overkill!" he shoots back. "We get it! You're super fucking cool, okay? You're _so_ goddamn shit-eating cool. You're so cool you can't leave outside stuff outside. We're all so fucking impressed!"

"I'm glad you like it," I say, and hold up his ratty backpack. It's heavier than I expected. Presumably, there's something inside other than booty shorts.

He huffs a sigh and comes down the stairs.

My phone's ringing again. I check it. It's Stiller. Is he going to apologize for dragging me in the Mail? Or slam the point home? Tell him he refuses to work with me anymore? I really should answer this one. Rip the band-aid off, at least.

Karkat grabs the bag out of my hand. Eh. Fuck it. I hit the red button. Not today, Morpheus. I'm blue pilling the fuck out of here.

The kid holds the pack close to his chest. It's a really young bit of body language that drives home the gulf of decades between us. "Your birthday's in late June, huh?" I ask with a laugh. "Doesn't that make you a cancer? Fuck, dude. Your mother had a hilarious sense of humour."

Something dark flickers in the kid's eyes. "Didn't have a mother," he says shortly. He swings the back up on his back. Before I can say _Oh man, we got Oliver Twist up in here_ or _Damn, your life is like the plot of some Oscar-bait movie_ or _Hey... sorry, man, me too_ , he juts his jaw and asks, "Okay, but, for real. What kind of movies do you make?"

I look away. Reach down and gather my bags up. "Bad ones," I admit, and start dragging my shit off down a hall. Luckily, my bedroom is on the first floor. I don't really want to haul my shit up the stairs without staff to help.

"No, I mean... what genre?"

I laugh. "Bad ones," I repeat.

"That isn't a fucking genre!" he snaps, hurrying after me.

"Oh, isn't it? Yeah. Spoken like someone who's never seen the indefensive shit I make!" The world is ending, and I've spent my adult life spending millions of dollars making intentionally bad pretentious mind-fuck.

"Look, stop being so fucking -- I have a reason for asking, okay? If I'm going to waste a chunk of my life making sure that you don't get sad and spare us all your company again, it would at least be nice to get something out of it, and I..."

I'd just thrown up the door to my room and he trails way off, standing at the doorway.

God, I'm such a pile of shit.

I don't let anyone I'm not having sex with into my room, which might lead someone to imagine that it's, like, my sanctum or something. Like, it's where I let all the pretentious nonsense float away and "truly be myself" or something. Well, that's a little hard when I have no idea what my true fucking self is, and so the room is just as outrageously ostentatious as the rest of the place. Fuck, maybe more, because this time, I'm only doing it to impress myself. And the people I'm planning to bone, I guess, though I rarely give a fuck about their opinions and just as often we fall into bed in a guest room.

Yeah, my home is some big statement about blah blah poor kid from the south, blah blah blah. Hadn't I just told myself that narrative a few minutes ago? Boo fucking hoo, nobody understands me. My statement is so nuanced that they just don't get it. That's nice. I'm even posing for myself. My bedroom shows that shit for the big lie it is. I'm not trying to make a statement to anyone with the velvet red walls, the round canopied bed, the entire wall of built in sound system, the attached bathroom with chrome fixtures. I just like it. I like living in a jewelery box of excess because I feel like I deserve it. I look around my inner sanctum and the emptiness floods back.

"I'm not sleeping in here," Karkat states firmly.

No shit, I should say. There are twelve bedrooms and twenty-three bathrooms in this house. You can pick one. Instead, I say, "But what if I try and kill myself during the night? What will Rose do, then?"

It comes out painfully sincere.

Maybe if I'd made it sound like a joke, he'd have scoffed and stomped off to find his own room, like I'd intended him to. But instead it had sounded like an actual real plea. I try not to look too hard about it.

Both of our eyes go to the big, fluffy futon.

A beat of silence.

Then, "... does that pull out?" Karkat asks.

"Yeah," I say. My voice sounds really small.

"Okay," he says. He brushes past me and throws his pack onto it. He doesn't look at me while he fishes around inside of it, comes out with a hairbrush, and then pads off into the adjoining bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

I run a hand through my hair. Jesus.

Oh, and my phone is ringing again.

It's my PA. And my finger immediately goes to hover over the green button. Of all the awful people who surround my awful life, he's probably the one I hate the least. He's a handsome, young, bright-eyed ingenue from upstate. Rose found him for me after my last PA had leaked the name of some of my on-and-off lovers to a gossip blog. I'd thought it was funny, like I cared who knew who I boned. Rose had said it was an invasion of privacy and she wouldn't stand for it. So she found this guy and I'll be the first to admit that it's been a good move.

Poor dude. He'd probably been beside himself worrying about me. He gets anxiety attacks when I'm late for interviews, much less skipping an entire convention and then vanishing entirely.

I hear the shower head come on and glance up, looking at the closed bathroom door. I bite my lip and try not to think about Karkat naked in my shower, water sluicing down his dark body. I fail entirely and think about it with much relish and an aching desire.

Phone's still going.

He'll have something to say, of course. Not just hello, Mr. Strider, I'm so glad that you're all right. It'll be oh and also I have this and this and this to pencil you in for. 

But the problem with not hating him is that I can't just ignore him, no matter how much he's the bearer of bad bullshit.

Red pill time.

Half an hour later, Karkat emerges from the bathroom wearing the same dirty clothes he went in with. I might need to buy him some stuff. I'm sitting at the edge of my bed wearing silk monogrammed pyjamas, for my part, and he rolls his eyes when I stand up and he gets a look at me.

"Good shower?" I ask.

He averts his eyes. "Uh, yeah," he says. "Way better water pressure than I ever had at my place in Ibiza."

Which makes me feel weirdly proud. LIke I'm personally responsible, somehow. Jesus.

"So," I say, as he sets about pulling out the futon. "How much do you want to go to a fancy Hollywood party tomorrow night? It's Rachel McAdams's birthday, and I may have gotten guilted into saying I'd go."

His eyes go wide. "Who?"

"Rachel McAdams," I say. "You know, Mean Girls?"

"I know Mean Girls, idiot!" Karkat snaps. "I told you, I like American movies! And Mean Girls is -- well, I just mean -- well, it's a good movie! I like it!" He's blushing furiously and before I can start to rib him about it, he's off again. "Who the fuck _are_ you?" he asks. "What movies do you make, that you know all these people and can afford a place like this and get invited to parties like that?"

I just point to the wall behind him.

His brow furrows, and then he turns and looks. There's a theatrical release poster from the original Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff behind him, and he goes stiff...

...and then throws up his hands.

"Oh, fuck no!"

Oh, good. He's a hater.

  



	10. Interlude 3: August, 1987 // Drag me back to Bumfuck, Assland.

  


Dave struggled with the zipper on his bag. The fucking thing was so old at this point it was falling apart, and he was impatient to get all of his stuff squared away so that he could spend some more time with Rose before the bus got here. The damn deteriorating nylon holding the zipper to the bag kept giving more and more in response to his tugging, and he stepped back from his bunk, throwing his hands in the air.

"Fuck!"

The sun streaming in from the cabin door went dim. "Dave, please!" A familiar voice said. "There are kids here a lot younger than you!"

Dave snapped his head around, flushing. He jammed his hands into his pockets, slumping his shoulders a bit. "They're foster kids, too," he muttered. "Junior's gonna hear as bad or worse from his next shitty dad coming down the pipe."

It had been six years plus one summer since a very young Michael Johnson had been waved to the nametag table by a harried twenty-something camp counsellor. She was thirty-something now and Dave could see a few lines around the corners of her eyes as she gave him a long-suffering smile and came forward to help him zip his bag like he was still a kid. She'd been at camp every year he'd been able to go, and he thought that part of him would always love her because, indirectly, she was the one who had given him the chance to be Dave.

"I could have done that," he grumbled as she slowly held the rotting nylon closed and zipped his bag up carefully, one tooth at a time. "It's not exactly rocket science. Whoa, check this shit out, bigtime camp lady can get a bag closed. Holy balls, she's a genius."

She turned and deposited the secured bag into his arms. "You really need to watch that mouth of yours," she warned. She seemed... sad. And he hated it. He didn't need her sympathy. "It's going to get you into a world of trouble, someday."

"You're gonna have a world of egg on your face when my silver tongue gets me elected president, lady," he said.

"Is that what you _want_ to be?"

Dave looked away. He made a flippant scoffing noise, but only to hide the knots that tied in his belly. The staff here always were asking that sort of question. What do you dream of? What future do you see for yourself? The sort of thing none of his foster families had ever actually taken the time to wonder, much less try to engage him with. It felt good and warm when they asked those questions, because he got the feeling they really cared about the answer. And it also felt like crap. Because he never knew what to say to any of them. He liked to draw. He liked music. He liked looking for fossils. He didn't know what that meant.

What kind of future was there for someone like him, anyway?

He shrugged and forced himself to look up. He hated that she could probably read his uncertainty in his eyes. "Okay," he said. "How about this? I'll think about it and next year I'll totally hand you a list of all my top ten picks for future career options." He already resolved to fill it with things like 'elephant washer' or ‘Olympic speed dialer.'

He didn't expect her face to fall. "Oh, Dave," she said, her voice so heavy with pity that he wanted to spit in her face and get the fuck out of there. "Did nobody tell you?"

*

By the time he found Rose under the big old tree where they'd first met, his eyes were already red from crying, his head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls, his throat hurt, and he hated himself. He hated every second of memory of how he'd crumpled into the counselor's arms and wept like a fucking baby. He hated how she'd _shh_ ed into his ear and stroked his back like a mother he'd never had and he actually had liked it. He hated that she'd seen him fall apart like that, and he hated the ragged edge rubbing up against him that made it super clear in his head that he could have his control torn away like that again in a second if someone looked at him wrong.

HAVE A GREAT YEAR, the banner over the big dining cabin encouraged. He hated the dishonesty of it. More like, HAVE A GREAT LIFE. BYE. DON'T WRITE. WE GOT BILLS TO PAY, FOO. The speakers playing the radio piped out I've Had The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing, which was at least a little more honest.

Dave stopped in front of Rose. She didn't look up from her book.

"You fucking knew," he said, and his voice broke again, and he hated it.

_and I never felt this way before, and I swear it's the truth..._

Rose marked her page in her book. She looked up at him. Now that he was looking for it, he actually could explain the darkness around her eyes, the slight turn of her mouth, the way she'd been looking at him when she thought he wasn't.

She got to her feet.

And then she moved closer and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I'm sorry," she said. Her voice was very, very quiet. "I just knew you would start acting different once you knew. And I wanted to just enjoy being together. It's selfish."

She tucked her face into the curve of his neck. He swallowed hard, biting the inside of his fucking cheek so hard he tasted blood. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't cry. Crying gets you slapped around. Crying gets you dragged through the mud. Crying makes you weak.

"Yeah, it sure is," he said. His voice was rough as sandpaper. "Fuck you, Rose."

"I'd tell you that I would do it differently, but I wouldn't."

She was so -- fucking -- _frustrating_.

And he loved her _so much._

He encircled her and pulled her closer and they clung to one another as Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes serenaded each other. Dave had become aware of a lot of little things about Rose this summer. Things either he'd never noticed before, or hadn't been there. Like the swell underneath her shirt, or the softness of her skin, or the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled at him. All summer, he'd toyed with ideas and thoughts. Like, what if he teased her about having a crush on someone to see how she'd react? Or, what if he responded directly one of those times when she jokingly flirted with him? Or, what would happen if he rolled over and kissed her while they were out on the lawn, looking up at the stars?

Those thoughts felt more relevant than ever, now that he was holding her in his arms. And they also were slipping to somewhere a thousand miles away, because who could say when they'd actually see each other again?

"Are you going to stay angry at me forever?"

"That would get real boring," he said, voice still thick. And lonely. Really, really lonely. "But I'm definitely going to stay angry for a bit, at least. Get real worked up about it. Write some poetry to get my emotions out."

"I would be interested in reading that."

"Oh my god. Of course you would."

He pulled away from her, because his body was getting too aware of hers and the last thing he wanted was for _that_ to be how she figured out he had impure thoughts about her. The fact that he'd actually just thought the phrase 'impure thoughts' made him wince. It was something right out of his current foster dad's mouth, something he got right off his televangelists on the TV, and when the bus came, Dave would be going back there and there wouldn't be this lifeline in the back of his head. Next summer, Foster Camp and Rose wouldn't be here waiting.

His eyes slid off her and up the massive tree behind her. He swallowed hard. "I guess they'll cut this down," he said. "Since this is probably going to be where the parking lot will be."

Rose actually sniffled. She turned away from him quickly, to hide her tears, but she laid a hand against the trunk of the tree, where they had carved the names on their birth certificates, obliterated them, and then carved the names they'd taken for themselves instead underneath. Underneath, they'd chiseled '1981,' and then added another year every time they'd both been here since. 82. 83. 85. The 87 was still fresh, sap leaking out from the wound. 

It was really quiet for a long moment. Dave scuffed at the ground with one of his beat up sneakers.

Then Rose said, "Well, this isn't the end. That's just silly. We'll see one another again, and soon."

Dave felt a bit of hope nipping at the heels of his heart. "Is this one of your weirdass premonitions, here?

She turned back. "No," she said, smiling. "It's logic. We're thirteen in four months. We can get jobs. Save our own money. Make it a _priority._ If we do that, it won't be so long before we can visit."

Thinking about the logistics of the space between them without this government program smoothing off the edges made Dave's head spin. He tried to focus on the positivity of her message. They were the only real connection in either of their lives. Of course they'd see one another again. Just because they didn't have this place linking them anymore, that wouldn't change. They had a connection so strong that nobody even understood it. Michael Johnson and Susan Smith had been awakened by their very contact with one another and become something closer to the people they were meant to be.

And that was all well and good, but Foster Camp had been sold, the fucking dickbags who bought it were going to cut down their tree, and who knows how long it would take either of them to save the kind of money it would take to cross all the distance between them.

He heard the squeal of brakes and turned. Fuck, no. Fuck, yes, as it turned out. The old bus, the one that went to Texas, chugged around the corner. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"I think that's your ride," Rose murmured.

"Yeah," Dave replied. "That's definitely my ride. Here to drag me back to Bumfuck, Assland."

"It'll seem like no time at all," she said.

"Pretty sure it's going to seem like a hundred years, but thanks for the effort, I guess."

Rose sniffled again, and then dove in for another hug. This time, when he wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair, he didn't think about her as a girl at all. All he could think about was that he always felt as if he were living the _wrong life_ , and it was only when he was with her that it felt a little bit right.

Time of My Life faded into dramatic quiet, and then, blasting forth from the radio, came the bombastic, absolute worst electronic drumbeat Dave had ever heard. It was so shockingly, jarringly fake sounding that the both of them started laughing. It made it a whole lot easier to disentangle themselves and say goodbye as a singer started proclaiming that he was no stranger to love.

A whole lot of years later, Dave Strider would cite this as his first brush with advanced irony: being rickrolled when he thought his life was ending.

  



	11. Just To Prove

  


When I come back into the bedroom from my blanket gathering expedition, he's waiting for me.

"It's barely even a movie!" Karkat says.

I toss him the bundle of sheets I just went out foraging for. He catches them like a pro; the crowd goes wild. "See, I don't know about that," I drawl. I sit at the edge of my bed and watch him struggle with the fitted sheet. "I mean, I filmed them myself, and there were definitely cameras and lighting and sound guys and boom mics and shit. And I was at the premiere, where it played in a theatre, so... pretty sure I hit all the qualifications for movie-hood."

Karkat is getting well and truly tangled up in that sheet, and I watch with a growing smirk. Something about the sight of him fighting with the fabric is tickling at the edge of my memory, but I can't place why. "You know what I fucking mean! Stop being willfully fucking ignorant, you pretentious hipster fuckwad!" He tries to shake the sheet out but it's halfway wrapped around him and he growls.

"I really don't," I say, despite the fact that I really do. "Come on, bro. What does Mean Girls have that I don't?"

Other than competent film-making, that is.

"I -- just give me one -- fucking --- _argh_!" Karkat manages to untangle himself and throws the sheet onto the ground like he thinks he's Thor or something. I smother down my amusement, because I'm pretty sure he's going to fly at me in a flurry of claws and teeth if I laugh outright. He stands over the offending sheet for a moment, his chest expanding like some reptilian show of aggression while he huffs and puffs. Then he turns his big brown eyes on me. "For starters," he says, with viciousness that I feel is only maybe thirty percent for me, with the rest being vicarious carry-over from the sheet, "it has a fucking screenwriter!"

Hah. Yeah, that's a pretty good point.

I climb to my feet and stretch. I pace over to him and, just when he starts blushing, thinking I'm going to do something untoward, I bend down and scoop up the sheet. I give him a sideways grin and he bares his teeth at me and I start unfurling the sheet. Surely, with me to help, he can accomplish this task.

"My movies have a screenwriter," I say, handing him one end and crossing over to tuck my end in.

"Fuck, no," Karkat spits back. He stars down at the end I gave him, and then shrugs and starts tucking his in. He doesn't even fall over comically or anything, so good job, little buddy. "No fucking way there was a screenplay for that trash. You threw a shit-encrusted, drug-addled chimp into an enclosure with a typewriter and then filmed whatever the fuck came out."

I actually snort at that. Damn, but he doesn't evoke some strong imagery. I can't help but think that he and Rose should hang out under better circumstances. I think she might appreciate his especially vile turn of phrase. "Nope," I say. "All me, baby."

Karkat shoots me a look. That self-impressed little half-smile appears on his lips again, and he raises his eyebrows. "That doesn't contridict my theory at all, yet."

Haha. Pretty good. "Shit, I think I just got blasted."

"There's no plot structure," Karkat says. His little smile vanishes and now he's focusing on tucking in the sheet like he's performing brain surgery. "And it's because the characters don't have any agendas! None of them actually _want_ anything! They just get thrown from increasingly escalating fuckwittery to fuckwittery, learning nothing, barely even interacting with the world around them! There aren't even any funny _jokes_! The only joke appears to be that the movie is just fucking objectively puke-swillingly _bad_!"

This is all stuff that people who can tell the Emperor is naked have said before. But even they have only said it in articles. Never to my face. And never with this sort of... _passion_.

I... kind of love it?

"Yep," I say.

He stops and looks up at me, brow furrowed. "What do you mean 'yep?'"

"I mena, yep. You solved it. That's it. That's the joke. The joke is that it's bad."

Karkat stands stock still for a second. I can see the wheels turning in his head, just as clearly as if there's steam pouring out of his ears. "I --" he says. Stops again. Thinks about it. Throws his hands up to either side of his face, shaped into claws, and howls, "What the _fuck_ , then?"

Shit, oh shit, this is too good.

"What the fuck, what?" I ask, trying to sound all innocent and like I don't know what he means.

"What the fuck, why the fuck have you made this sort of money"-- and here he flails his arms around, indicating, it would seem, literally everything -- "for making films that are _intentionally bad_! What's so special about a _bad_ movie? Fuck! Let me have a camera, I'll make a bad movie! Anyone can make something bad!"

"But not everyone can make something _intentionally_ bad," I say. I'm splitting hairs. At this point, I'm not even sure I believe it. But he's getting so fucking riled up and saying all these things that I've been thinking and it's _delightful?_

"Yes they can!" Karkat protests and actually fists both of his hands in his wild mane of hair, that's how frustrated he is with my shit. "I sat upon a toilet seat and there I laid a creamy shit. Look, I just wrote an intentionally bad poem! It's meaningless, the rhythm is off, and it kind of but doesn't quite rhyme! It's hot garbage on every level! It took me two seconds and zero effort!"

I can't help it. I start laughing. Shit, but his vitriol is _nice_. It's the 1875 Chateau Margaux of contempt. "Okay," I wheeze, holding up a hand. "Okay. Okay." I try and get myself under control and straighten to face him. "Okay," I say. "All right. Here's the secret. You're actually totally right."

"I -- what?"

"Yeah, like. Totally. The thing is, yeah, the joke is that they're bad, but I mean, you've seen them, right?"

Karkat eyes me. He folds his lips. "I've seen the first one," he admits. "I couldn't fucking torture myself with an encore. Especially since everyone around me kept talking about how _good_ it was! Did everyone's brains just leap out of their heads and head for the coast?"

I start to get excited listening to him talk. After years of hearing everyone ascribe all sorts of meaning to my work, Karkat actually hitting the whole thing so dead on the nose is stoking a fire in me I was pretty sure had gone out. "Yeah! No, like, yeah, that's it! That right there, that's why my movies make so much money! That's why everyone is always fucking talking about them, right? Because I layer so many fucking tiers of bullshit, right? Bullshit on bullshit on bullshit. It's so fucking bad, but there's so much imagery and so many weird lines and shit, right? And everyone gets it in their head that it can't _actually_ just be bad! It has to be some kind of like... like, a statement. Like, whoa, hold the fuck up, junior, this dude has a whole bunch to say about, like... global warming or conspicuous consumption or idiocracy or auteur theory or the fucking illuminati or some shit. He must be a fucking genius, holy balls, can we already buy our tickets for the next one? We want the secrets to the universe poured into our gaping baby-bird peeping craws, thanks. Because nobody has well spoken and charismatic as me could actually just throw junk at a screen and see how people react to it. Except that's _exactly_ what I did. The sequels are just more of the same, just me trying to one-up myself and see how deep down the rabbit hole my dumbass audience is willing to follow me."

Karkat is watching me like I'm having a nervous breakdown or something, and... maybe I am? Because I'm talking really fast and using my hands and my voice is climbing and climbing.

I smile weakly. I drop my hands. "Uh, and the answer is... all the way the fuck down, bro. We're bottoming this shit out in hell, where no rabbit has gone before."

He looks at me. I look at him.

He buried his face in his hands.

"You're a lunatic," he whispers hoarsely. "I'm shackled to a fucking _psychotic._ "

He manages to get the upper sheet on mostly by himself, and then the chenille blanket I grabbed off one of the couches in the viewing room. I stand back and leave him to his shit. My head's kind of going around in circles, anyway. He makes the bed like it's a ritual, and I can't help but admire how he squares his corners and so forth even though he's just about to climb into the thing. I remember arguing with Rose once about this. Why bother making the bed when it's just going to...

... hm.

Actually, now that I think about it, I didn't argue about this with Rose at all. Rose doesn't make her bed, either. Never has. She and I are on the same team with bed-making. _Getting into a bed that's still tousled from your sleep feels more natural, doesn't it?_ I can remember her saying.

What was I remembering, then?

Probably something with one of my foster siblings over the years. Or maybe one of my household staff, who always insist on making mine? Still. Still, weird that I would think of it, now.

Karkat finally finishes and flops down onto the bed. I look at his scuffed jeans and two-day-old hoodie for a second. "You want a t-shirt or something?" I ask. Anything I bought for myself would probably hang low like a nightshirt on him.

I really don't mean anything by it, but clearly he takes it that way. He turns over and curls into the fetal position. "Just because you got me to sleep in here doesn't mean I'm going to fuck you," he says in a guarded voice.

My lips twist into something that is neither a smile nor a grimace and I lay back on my own bed. I'd let myself get sort of caught up in the brutal honesty of us talking about my films. Let myself forget, for a second, that this isn't a relationship of equals. That he's here because he's obligated to be, like everyone else.

"Yeah," I say. "Sorry. Just thought you might be more comfortable, or something. I don't know. Whatever."

I think he feels bad, because he has a really defensive edge in his voice when he talks again. "Well," he says. "Now I've got all of your secrets, asswipe. What makes you think that I'm not going to run to the nearest gossip reporter and turn you in for fucking with everyone's minds?"

I sit up a bit. He's laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. I sigh and crawl back on my bed, pulling aside the covers -- seriously, I _hate_ getting into a made bed, I feel like I'm crawling into a fucking cacoon or something. "Well," I say. "I mean, two things. First thing, I don't think that you're going to blow your meal ticket, here. Now that you've seen Palazzo di Strider, you'd kind of have to be an idiot to accept a grand for a hot tip to Perez Hilton."

"Okay," Karkat says. "That's a pretty good point. This place is -- well, it's fucking stupid. It's _idiotic_. But it's... pretty amazing."

"Yep." I clap twice, and the lights start to dim. I wrap myself up in the blankets and look up at the canopy. "Second reason," I say, "is because it doesn't fucking matter. Honestly? I think you're right about all of it. I'm done with Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. I've wasted so many years of my life playing bullshit mind games with people. Everything is part of the narrative, and... and fuck it. I spend so much fucking time trying to sell the mystery of Dave Strider, brilliant auteur, that nobody except Rose actually knows me, and I'm just... tired of it."

"Oh," he says. The lights continue to fade until we're laying in the dark. There's french doors leading out to the patio against one wall, but otherwise, there's no windows. I like total darkness when I sleep. I don't think the sun is all the way set, just yet, but it's pretty much pitch black in here other than the red lights on the sound system.

When he speaks up again, his voice is pretty quiet. "Is that why you, uh...?"

I swallow. "Uh, yeah. Partly." I can't even get into all the reasons. How can I explain to him what the discovery of alien life on Earth _really_ means? Or what happened between Rose and I to make it so that the one real connection in my life had just gone up in flames the night we met? But... sure. At its most simple level, that's where it all starts.

"You should make good movies," he says suddenly, full of conviction. "You have all the connections and you can fund it and all that. You should make something that has actual _value_."

I laugh bitterly into the darkness. "Uh, yeah," I say. "That would require me actually having _talent_. I'm not sure I could _make_ a good movie." In fact, I'm fully sure I couldn't. I'm a poser. That's all.

I close my eyes and curl onto my side. It feels... nice, sleeping in my own bed. It's a good thing, right? That I feel comfort from being home? That I got catharsis out of having Karkat tear my shit to threads? That I feel a load being lifted after having confessed to someone who's listening that I'm done making movies? That means that... I don't know. That I'm not just zombie-walking through my own afterlife?

I hear my phone buzz and reach for it by my pillow. I don't know who to expect, Rose or someone from real life, but it's a text from an unknown number. I blink against the white glare from the screen and unlock my phone.

CG: LOOK, I'M SORRY.  


What the fuck? I rub my eyes and peer at the phone. I double-check, but yeah. Unknown number, and I don't... think recognize the screenname? It seems vaguely familiar, maybe. Or maybe not.

TG: new phone who dis  
CG: IT'S KARKAT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.  


What the fuck?

TG: haha what  
TG: what the fuck  
CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP, I HEAR YOU LAUGHING.  


Yeah, okay, I'm choking down chuckles, over here, but can you blame me?

TG: fuck  
TG: i have so many questions  
TG: like  
TG: why are you texting me from across the room  
TG: and  
TG: why are you texting in capslock  
TG: those are the two biggest ones really  
CG: I'M TEXTING YOU FROM ACROSS THE ROOM BECAUSE I JUST FIND IT A LOT EASIER TO BE HONEST ABOUT EMBRASSING SHIT WHEN I'M NOT EXERCISING THE USE OF MY FUCKING VOCAL CORDS, OKAY?  
TG: haha  
TG: ok bro  
CG: AND I'M USING CAPSLOCK BECAUSE I THINK THIS DUMB FUCKING PHONE IS BROKEN AND I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO TURN IT THE FUCK OFF.  
TG: it makes you sound like  
TG: super angry  
TG: are we gonna fight karkat  
TG: is this about to be a rumble  
CG: NO.  
CG: FUCK, YOU'RE EVEN MORE ANNOYING IN TEXT.  


I can't seem to stop laughing.

"Cut it the fuck out!" he snaps from his bed.

"Oh my god," I say. "This is enormously fucking dumb, you know that, right?"

CG: STOP IT.  
CG: YOU'RE MAKING IT WEIRD.  
TG: bro ive got some news for you  
TG: it started weird  
TG: it left the station already carrying a full load of weird  
CG: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, I'M NEVER GOING TO BE NICE TO YOU EVER AGAIN. THIS IS THE REPAYMENT I GET?  
CG: UNBELIEVABLE!  
TG: what are you even apologizing for anyway  


He doesn't reply right away. I hear him breathing in the darkness, and for a moment it's like my vision is doubled, and there are two Karkats, the one in the bed and the one in my phone. In my head, they look different, sound different... _are_ different.

The sensation passes.

CG: I...  
CG: I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE JUST ASSUMED YOU WERE TRYING TO SEDUCE ME EARLIER WHEN YOU WERE ACTUALLY JUST OFFERING ME SOME CLOTHES.  
CG: I JUST...  
CG: WHATEVER.  
CG: I DON'T REALLY HAVE AN EXCUSE, I JUST REACT REALLY STRONGLY TO THINGS SOMETIMES, OKAY?  
TG: ...yeah  
TG: i mean thats fine man  
TG: like  
TG: it was a pretty fair assumption considering how we met and shit so  
TG: you dont need to apologize  
CG: OKAY.  
TG: ok  
TG: now we have got to figure out how to turn that shit off because you look like youre screaming at the top of your lungs and its wigging me the fuck out  


I hear him laugh quietly and I'm startled when I feel my lips curving into a smile.

It's an actual smile. Like, my lips curl up at the corners and my heart beats a little faster and I didn't force it, I didn't paste it on my face, it's not bitter or ironic or smirky. It's a real smile. Karkat's laugh made me smile.

Not sure what that means. Might be good news. Might be trouble. Who knows?

But it sure feels good.

"Night," I whisper into the darkness.

He doesn't say anything back.

  



	12. I'm A Real Big Baller

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: this chapter deals very frankly with dave's suicidal ideation

  


So.

We don't end up going to Rachel McAdams's birthday party.

The day goes by. Karkat is mesmerized by his phone and barely looks up from it. I take a long, hot shower. Karkat is on the phone with Rose. I play Fruit Ninja for longer than I really want to admit. Karkat asks me if I know this star or that screenwriter and is gratifyingly impressed by my answers. I order Chinese and buzz the guy at the gate to let him know to bring it up to the door. We open up the little boxes by the pool. Karkat doesn't have a sweet clue how to use chopsticks and I rib him while he glares and eventually throws them into the pool. He eats with his fingers.

There's never really a moment when I decide we're not going, exactly. My PA texts and asks if I want a driver for the party. I say nah, I'll take one of my flashy cars. The clock ticks closer to go-time. I don't lay out my clothes. I wander the halls of the estate. Go up to the second floor balcony and watch dusk start to fall on the city. Karkat texts to check and make sure I'm still alive. Yeah, dude, I'm fine. We're supposed to be at the party in two hours. I should really style my hair. We should leave a bit early so I can get a new pair of aviators -- can't be seen without them. I watch night fall. I wish I could see the stars. I think about me and Rose at Foster Camp, finding constellations. It seems like it should be easier to see them, when they were so damn bright.

The time to leave early passes, and then the window for punctuality passes, and then it's too far gone to even arrive fashionably late. My phone buzzes and it's my PA and I ignore it. It buzzes again. Publicist. Ignore it. Buzz. PA again. Meh.

Karkat finds me on the balcony when the moon is well and truly risen. "What time is the party?" he asks.

"Two hours ago," I reply.

"Fuck," he says. And then, a moment later: "Well, if you're actually _not_ taking me to meet one of the most talented and amazing actresses of my generation can you at least fucking feed me?"

I order pizza. I put anchovies and pineapple on it to fuck with him. He likes it and tells me I have good taste, though it's not as good as mediterranean pizza.

You know what? Fuck you, Vantas, no one spoils my masterful trolling like this by being all weirdly sincere. I suffer through the hellish pizza because I feel bad admitting I was just messing with him. It's truly, truly fucking awful.

He sleeps on the futon again without question. He falls asleep fast and I listen to him breathing in the darkness. He's slowly lost some tension all day long. It's like every time I don't try and use him for my own pleasure or whatever, he starts to believe that I'm not going to. It occurs to me that I'm glad I didn't fuck him. If I had, he'd only ever see me as a john. As it is... it's hard to tell what he sees me as. A meal ticket, sure. Ticket to a better life, definitely. But he saved my life before any of that was on the table, and listening to him in the blackness, it's hard to discard that.

I can't remember the last time I spent a whole day with someone I wasn't selling the Dave Strider legend to. It feels...

I don't know.

I should probably send Rachel a fruit basket or something, I think before I fall asleep. She's cool. Pretty tacky to RSVP to her party and then no-show it.

The thing about a day like this is that it can quickly fall into a rhythm. My estate is set so far apart from the rest of the world, gated and bordered by steep hills and surprisingly thick forest, that even though I'm back in my life, it still feels like another world. And one day of delivery food, quiet companionship, and ignoring my phone quickly becomes two. Three. Four. Five. I blink and two weeks have passed since I got back to California. I haven't left my house.

It's the first of December and I'm sitting in the viewing room on one of the many couches. It feels like it's hugging me, wrapping me up in its plush embrace. The TV is going, and I've got it on CNN, and they're talking about the Empress.

It's one of those roundtable style discussions. There's a pretty blonde lady in a pantsuit trying to raise her voice over her male counterparts. Rose would have something to say about that, but my brain is kind of marinating in its own juices at the moment and can't come up with her little voice. I'm an entirely passive observer while these dumbfucks debate the end of a world they have no idea is dying.

"If she lacks human physiology, why was her first move upon coming to Earth to begin a baking empire?" One of the casters has got his hands waving around like he's praising Jesus or something. "If her species is _so_ alien, wouldn't she metabolize entirely different food?"

"There's _no_ reason to think that she's any different from us," the other man says, a lot more reasonable, but still loud enough that the female caster can't be heard over him. "She _looks_ human. She's Betty Crocker, for Christ's sake! On the surface, it's impossible to tell her apart from any of the rest of us, except that she's quite a bit taller and doesn't look her age."

The female caster manages to speak. "So you think homo sapiens evolved on a separate planet entirely? That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Linda, please. Frankly I'm surprised you think evolution is the cause at all. If anything, I think Ms. Crocker's clearly human appearance and physiology is a great case for creationism! You're right. The odds that human life just _evolved_ in the exact same way on a different planet are astronomically slim. This throws the entire theory of evolution into disarray."

"Fucking hell," I say to the screen. "Fucking unbelievable. Yeah, you nailed it, dude, it's fucking God. _God_ was all like yo I'm just going to copy and paste my best work onto a different planet and then make them fight and see which one comes out on top. God is a fucking arena master, yo. God is watching this shit from his referee bubble but he ain't gonna blow that whistle, no sir. He's just going to watch and maybe get a semi. Idiots. She has a fucking spaceship made of entrails and snot and you don't think she can disguise her third eye and tentacle fingers or whatever?"

"Are you talking to your fucking television?" Karkat's voice comes from behind me.

"Yep," I reply. Maybe he heard the whole thing. So what. He already suspects that I'm one of the doomsaying cult waving signs that Betty Crocker is going to subjugate humanity, who are hysterical and reactionary and, coincidentally, right.

Damn. Betty fucking Crocker. Truth is stranger than fiction.

He comes and sits beside me. I can't help but watch him a bit. I've gotten the sense that Karkat is a really tactile sort of guy. I catch him stroking the grain of wood, or the marble in a pillar. I saw him trailing his hands through the leaves in my hallway forest, or through the water at the edge of the pools. When I wake up before him, I watch him sleep sometimes. You know, real Twilight shit. Whatever. He squirms in his sleep a lot, rubbing his skin against the chenille nest he's made by gathering every decadent blanket in my estate and adding them to his futon one by one. He just likes touching things, and likes experiencing the world through touch. When he sinks into my plush soft hug couch, he does that same little squirm and rubs the palms of his hands on the cushion beneath him. 

It's pretty cute.

He watches the TV with me for a bit. Linda is trying to express her theory that the Empress only _looks_ human, that if we were to X-ray and MRI her and whatever else, we'd find all sorts of weird internal differences. Her male coworkers get into a pretty hilarious argument about whether Her Alien Majesty proves Jesus Loves You or not. Karkat finds the remote and shuts the whole thing off.

"Hey," I mutter. Faint protest.

"Okay," he says, turning in the couch to look at me. "Look." He takes a really deep breath. "You need to leave your house."

I snort. "Oh shit, somebody just got off the phone with Rose."

"Shut up! I -- even if I did, it's besides the point, because she's fucking right! You're completely isolated up here, it's fucking pathetic."

"So?"

"So..." His brow furrows and he starts sputtering. He wasn't expecting that. I think he was hoping I'd be all offended. No way, I'm not pathetic. He's always so defensive, it's like he expects it in other people. Joke's on you, sucker. Can't shame the suicidally depressed. I fucking win this round, booyeah.

"Okay," I say, when he doesn't seem able to find a rejoinder in time. I grab the remote out of his hand and turn the TV back on. "Glad we got that sorted."

"Fuck you!" He dives at me, wrestles the remote from my hand, turns the TV off again, and then hurls the thing all the way across the room. I hear a snap and then several somethings all clattering across the floor.

I turn and fix him with morose eyes. "You gonna replace that?"

"Eat my shit," he snaps, big brown eyes flashing. "Look. Okay. Look." He brings up his phone. He thumbs through it and I watch his brow all scrunched up in in concentration. Fuck me, he can be so goddamn cute. I picked him up that night for a reason. There's something about him. He's totally gorgeous, but there's something else to it, too. It's like when you look at someone and get this feeling like damn, that person is my type. Before I saw Karkat Vantas, I'm not sure I ever saw someone who was _really_ my type before.

That probably makes no sense.

Karkat flips the phone and holds it out to me.

_DAVE STRIDER HOLED UP IN ESTATE WITH EXOTIC MALE LOVER._

_Despite how many cameras got a shot of billionaire film director Dave Strider entering his estate with a young, male middle eastern hottie on the 17th, not a soul has seen either of them emerge from the love nest. Food delivery has been constant, and lights are on in the estate, but_

The article cuts off there and I'm not really motivated to scroll down and see more speculation about my love nest. "Okay, but that's the Daily Mail," I say. "They're trashy as fuck."

" _Everyone_ is reporting on it," Karkat says. "Rose sent me links. People are just making up their own vomit-inducing versions of what's going on in your life! Don't you at _least_ want to get out there and tell your _own_ story?"

I think about it.

Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I care, kind of. I wish I could say I didn't. I wish I could say that I hate my fans and followers and the people who surround me so much that the fact that they're writing their own chapter in my carefully curated life story is just like, pft, whatever man. But I've spent just _so_ much time and effort controlling my image and my legend that the feeling that it's out there doing its own thing without my finger on its pulse makes me kind of crazy.

But then I think about what it would take to get it back under control, and I just...

"Maybe I'm tired of telling stories," I say, and fuck, but I sound fucking _tired_.

Karkat screws his face up like he's about to yell at me, but I think he just can't find any words to yell, because he goes slack a second later and drops his eyes from mine. I can tell that his own silence is frustrating him because he keeps closing and opening his fists like he's milking them or something. "Well," he finally says, and his voice is so defensive it basically has a fence made of tigers around it, "maybe you need to find a new story?"

I laugh. "Is this the part where you suggest I make 'good' movies again?" I ask. "Because I'm pretty sure we went through this and I explained why that's impossible. Good movies require a good director and I'm poser trash."

He does this little growl under his breath, like a really angry puppy. He snaps his gaze to mine. His hands make a decision and assume the 'about to throw a punch' position. "Wow. Just look at you! It sure must be nice to pretend that you don't give a fuck about anything! You can't do anything right and can't have a real fucking conversation with anybody but who cares, right? Nothing matters, blah blah, a bunch of nihilistic rancid steaming horseshit that's just shorthand for whatever, bro, I'm just too fucking cool for this! Right?"

Honestly, it's kind of a slap in the face. I snap back like it was _actually_ a slap in the face and my head just whirls for a second. "No, look, wait a second. That's definitely a whole lot of bullshit because, uh, I'm pretty sure you actually witnessed the effects of my caring way too _much_? Caring my way through a whole bottle of pills?"

"Oh, fuck off. That's not caring, that's quitting."

"Fuck off, yourself!" I'm actually angry, now. I get up off the couch and run a hand through my hair. "It's not _quitting_ , it wasn't about -- it was just about -- look, there's literally no fucking point of being alive, okay? It's that simple!"

"Wow," Karkat says. He folds his arms and glares up at me. "You sure have got it all figured out. You care so much that you don't care about anything and since you don't care about anything what's the point?"

"That's not it!" He's being willfully fucking ignorant. He has to be! There's no way he doesn't get it, there's no way he could just be so stupid! "It's not that I don't care, it's that _they_ don't care, it's that--"

I throw up my hands and stalk away. I can't explain it. I can't put it into words. I can't do it for Rose and I sure as _shit_ can't do it for this little hooker who thinks he fucking knows me.

I get halfway out the room, though, and it hits me. It hits me like an anvil in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon and knocks me off my feet and I fall. I actually physically fall onto my knees. When does this end? I'm thinking. When does it end, when does it end? I can't do this anymore. I _can't_.

This is it, I think. This is the moment my life actually becomes some extremely stupid Oscarbait movie. I'm about to start crying and discover my true self in the arms of the poor third world child prostitute I rescued. I'm played by Ryan Gosling and Karkat is played by Dev Patel because he's the only regionally appropriate semi A-lister in the world. They both get the Academy Award. Standing ovation at the premiere. Ryan has this bit in his acceptance speech about visibility and mental illness in media.

And then I just... stop. Because right now, while my hands clutch to the carpet and I'm shaking and I'm struggling to breathe under the weight of my own bullshit, I'm actually creating _more bullshit_ to suffocate myself with. Telling _more stories_. I realize that, even more than that night in Ibiza, I am having an _actual mental breakdown right now_ and I'm still wrapping it up in Dave Strider inanity.

I have a problem.

I have a fucking problem and I need to stop.

"Shit," Karkat is saying, and I can just imagine him fluttering around in a panicked ball of energy. "Shit. Shit." I hear him dialing his phone. Calling Rose. Rose is going to fly down here when she hears this and

I

can't

look

at

her

"Stop," I manage to say. "Stop, don't call Rose."

" _Uhh_ , I think there isn't really a choice right now!"

"Please, please, fuck, Karkat, please don't call Rose." I let myself fall all the way to the ground. I try to relax, try to breathe. I can't breathe. The fakeness of my life is crushing me and I can't breathe.

" _What the fuck else am I supposed to do?_ "

I need something real. I had Rose. I ruined Rose. And without that, without that piece of reality tethering me to my life, I really can't do this. I really can't.

This is why I've been avoiding things. This is why I haven't left my house. I never left the post-credits scenes after all. The second that I go out there, the second I put on my shades and my suits and become the character I've created again, it all just starts over. I won't be able to get away from it and I'll just hollowly shuffle through everything until the Empress has her way and life on Earth is over and gone.

I need to _connect_.

Two and a half weeks ago, I'd reached out for Karkat, the sexy little hooker in the tight booty shorts. I'd paid him to pretend to be my boyfriend. It had been a huge mistake, because that was just more fake shit.

I make myself sit up. Karkat's eyes are terrified. I reach out and grab his hand.

He doesn't flinch, doesn't cringe, and doesn't pull away. He grips my hand tight.

I think this might be a moment that I'll look back on later. Karkat squeezed my hand, and it saved me.

"I can't do it," I say, and there's a bit of terrified, wounded little boy in my voice. The kid from Foster Camp. The kid who met Rose under the big tree. "Karkat. I can't _do_ it. I've built up this stupid bullshit personality for all of these people, and _none_ of them know me. The only way to leave this fucking house is to be him, be the big shot Hollywood baller, and I'm so fucking _alone_. I'm trapped inside of that asshole! And he's so fucking good at being me that _I'm_ just stuck in here and no one..." Fuck. Oh god. Here it comes. "Nobody loves me."

"Shit," Karkat says.

Silence reigns. It buzzes and sings in our ears. I think I might die. I'm so embarrassed. I'm so fucking stupid. I'm too old for this teenage bullshit. But Karkat doesn't let go of my hand.

"Shit," he says again. "Fuck. Okay. I -- listen, I just..."

Yeah, that's about the proper reaction for this shit.

I can't stand this shit, holy fuck. I start talking just so that words are happening. "It's just like... do you ever feel like you're living the wrong fucking life? Like somewhere you took a wrong turn and every single day, every single second, everything around you, it just feels like it's not _right_. Like who you actually are is like, I don't know, off somewhere else, and... and is just... and you just can't connect with him, the real you, and none of these people you meet are part of who you _are_ , part of the life you _should_ be living, and..."

I think silence was a lot better than this so I snap my mouth shut. But I'm not shaking anymore. That's something.

Here's something else:

Karkat gets this really weird look on his face. His brow furrows. He opens his mouth and then closes it. He shakes his head. "Yeah," he says, finally, and the depth of meaning and emotion in his words hits me right in the core.

I totally believe him.

"Oh," I say.

I figure this doesn't happen every often. This moment where, desperate and at the end of your rope, you blurt out the keystone at the centre of why you think you might actually be _legit_ crazy, and then... yeah.

"Okay," I say.

Karkat squeezes my hand again. Very gently, he pulls away. Like, he does it in this way that I can tell he isn't withdrawing because he's freaked out or done with my shit. His hand is just cramped and sweaty. I kind of chuckle and it's maybe a _little_ hysterical, but that's not the worst thing in the world. Karkat runs the hand through his hair.

"All right, look," he says. "I, um." He shakes his head. We sure are two awkward motherfuckers! "Okay, listen, I'm going to call Rose. I'm going to tell her that you still need time but I think we're making some real progress?"

That makes it sound like he's my shrink. I snort.

"Yeah," I say. "Okay, bro. Give your report to Dr. Lalonde."

He gives me a sharp little look, and I actually smile.

"Fuck you," he says, with no real heat. "And then I'm going to tell her that we'll talk about this more tomorrow. Okay? For tonight, I'll... put a movie on your screen and we can watch that and... I don't know, fuck, we'll just wing it, okay?"

"Gonna be hard to make that thing work when you broke my remote, asshole," I say.

" _Okay_?" he presses.

I avert my eyes. "Okay," I mutter. I feel like I'm the kid and he's the adult. I feel like I'm being managed like I'm a wayward little critter.

And I feel -- at least a little bit -- that Karkat Vantas might legitimately care whether I live or die.

I manage to stand up, and I don't think I'm imagining some of the weight is gone.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors note: I typically do not leave notes for the readers as all I do is post what was handed to me, but I did want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving and present you with a two-chapter update today. Enjoy!


	13. Interlude 4: April, 1990 // You Get So Lonely, Dave.

  


He had his head tilted against the glass like he was sleeping or bored, his Walkman was blasting LL Cool J, and his aviator shades probably blocked any view of his eyes, but he still couldn't help but think that someone was definitely watching him and thinking -- damn. That kid is wigging out right now.

He'd spent the last four hours gazing out the window and trying not to be impressed as the landscape went from southern badlands to vast, green New England forest. He'd never been on a plane before, and from so high above, the world looked like something from an atlas. Something beyond his experience or frame of reference. Their circling descent into Albany International Airport was like dropping into a beautiful sleepy suburb or something, compared to back home, and he felt like he was walking through a dream as he wrestled his beat up, overstuffed backpack down from the carry-on compartment and made his way through the terminal.

It was his first time on a plane, sure. And that was _crazy_. But crazier was that he hadn't paid for his own ticket. That someone had gone to the mat for him and convinced his current slap-happy foster father to make the trip.

That he was about to see Rose.

Three long-ass years, since he'd hugged her for the last time at Foster Camp.

He kept readjusting his grip on his backpack, trying to make sure it was all convincingly casual-like, draped carelessly over one shoulder. Running a hand through his sun-bleached hair, which he'd started wearing like a Beatle because he thought it was funny, and had to be pretty carefully styled. Straightening the lines of his shirt, his jeans, pushing up his aviator specs, smoothing out his expression. His heart banged in his head like the bassline on his Walkman and his eyes scanned and zeroed in and scanned again, looking for her. He wanted to look cool as a fucking cucumber when he saw her. He wanted to flash this perfect smirk he'd practiced, raise his chin a bit, and say "hey." Just "hey." Re-sling his backpack.

Watch her melt? Swoon.

Maybe. Didn't sound like Rose, really. It might actually be kind of a turn off, so, in truth, he didn't know. He just wanted to see how she _reacted_. He wasn't the same kid anymore. He wanted her to know that.

There were too many fucking strangers in an airport terminal, he realized, frustrated. He had no idea where Rose was. He slid his headphones back around his neck so that he might hear her voice. Every time he saw a blonde girl, he panicked, blood rushed in his ears, he mentally practiced his smirk/chin-raise/"hey" combo ten times, and then she turned and it wasn't Rose at all. It was...

There was a hand on his shoulder. "Dave?" His heart did a fucking swan dive into his left foot. He turned around.

Oh.

Holy shit.

He'd been looking for a blonde wisp of a girl wearing an old t-shirt. So, yeah. Even if he'd seen Rose, his eyes would have slipped right past her.

Firstly, because while he knew that he'd shot up like a beanstalk, he hadn't counted on how much it had widened the gap in height between them. And secondly, because he definitely _hadn't_ been looking for a curvy, milk-pale goth princess with black-and-purple hair, black lipstick, heavy black eye make-up, frilly black-and-purple clothes, chunky combat boots, and jewelry all in spikes and silk roses.

Like... damn.

She'd talked about writing poetry, novels about wizards, witches, and haunted houses, and song lyrics. She'd written that she was really into British bands like Sisters of Mercy and The Stone Roses. She'd even mentioned an interest in fashion. Somehow he hadn't really connected all of it.

He hadn't really imagined Rose embracing her own form of alt-culture.

He didn't smirk, or raise his chin, or re-sling his backpack, or say "hey." His eyes swept up and down her body, now all hips and thighs and pear-shaped sexiness. He felt heat in his cheeks and was glad beyond _belief_ for his fucking shades. His fingers clenched on the strap of his pack. "Jesus," he said. The words just came without his input. "Your fucking hair!"

She still had that same smile. Small and knowing. "You'll need to watch your mouth in front of my father," she said. On the last word, her smile turned to a grimace.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice higher than it had been since it had dropped _years_ ago. Come the fuck on!

She just rolled her eyes, took his hand, and tugged him after her, threading through the crowd.

He followed her. All his practiced chill evaporated now that she was actually in front of him. He watched the chains bounce at her hips, the way her hair still bobbed cheerfully when she moved, the small fingers linked with his.

He'd missed her so much that it threatened to close up his throat.

Rose's current foster father, the architect of this whole outing, smiled and effused and insisted on hugging Dave. He drove a fancy fucking car with a partition, which he solicitously rolled up so that he and Rose could talk in private. Dave's beat up backpack looked almost comically out of place in the trunk.

Rose straightened her headband of spikes and black silk roses. "How was your flight?"

Dave fucking _struggled_ to be cool. Actual, physical Rose was something strange and wonderful and heady and it had been _so long_. He'd been through four foster families and three cities since he'd seen her last. He'd worked long hours at a construction place, saving money for his phone calls to New York. He'd grown six inches. He'd missed her to death, but he didn't quite realize how badly until right now. Letters and phone calls had created an illusion of closeness that was shattered by seeing how much she had changed. And how little.

"Oh, you know," he said, shrugging one shoulder. LL Cool J rapped with conviction, tinny at the edge of his hearing through his headphones. "It was high and there were birds, presumably. Clouds. The usual."

She arched one eyebrow, tilted her head, and gave him _A Look_. He couldn't _remember_ actually seeing the look before, but it was _so_ familiar that he actually kind of snorted laughing and tried to swallow it.

She sighed. "Oh, I see how it is," she said. "I'd hoped that your new stoicism was just an illusion of long distance, but I can work with it."

 _'Work with it?'_ He gave her what he hoped was a suitably blank look."Ruh-roh."

"We're going to need to take some time of out these two weeks to ascertain your Myers-Briggs personality type. I like the model quite a bit, myself. Briggs and her daughter overcame considerable difficulty to publicize their theories, and it's all very well founded on Jungian psychology. Jung's ideas stand the test of time much better than Freud's."

"Holy fuck. What's happening? Yeah, this is Earth. Paging Miss Lalonde?"

Rose's face fell. She shot a look towards the partitioned driver's seat. "You should call me Susan where he can hear," she said, shaking her head slightly. "He has... _opinions_ about our other names."

Since when had anyone's _opinion_ bothered Rose about anything? But Dave supposed that when an opinion paid for your best friend to cross the country, drove a fucking beamer, and talked about wanting to adopt you, you got a little jumpy about it.

He sat back in his seat. "Yeah, well. Hate to disappoint you there, Sigmund, but they did that dumbass personality test on us at school this year. For like, I don't know, job placement or something? INFP, read it and weep. I think I'm supposed to be a social worker or something, so let's all take a second and get a really good chuckle at _that_ irony."

Rose frowned and shook her head. "Hm," she said, in that little way she had. She tapped her chin with a long fingernail. It was painted black, with small purple stars. "No, I don't think so. Introvert? Hardly. You're an ENFP."

They turned down a rocky road, and the car began to jostle furiously back and forth. Dave tried half-heartedly not to notice how Rose bounced around. How certain parts of her bounced around. His heart was locked in a vice grip.

"I'm not exactly party fucking central over here, you know," he muttered, slouching in his seat.

"I know," she said, and the look she gave him made his insides feel like a hand was squeezing them. "But you get so _lonely_ , Dave."

Fuck.

He turned away. And then, for good measure, put his headphones back on. His fave song, with the sample from the Wizard of fucking Oz, god _bless_ you, LL Cool J, was playing. Something about the serious-but-not, goofy-but-not tone that usually appealed to him so much made his stomach feel sick, so he fast forwarded to something else and didn't look back at Rose until they parked.

Stupid. He didn't have all the time in the world. But if he said anything at all, he was going to say something really, really bad. Like, maybe, _I love you._

The house was a fucking mansion. Rose's foster dad was once again way too cool and said that no, it was totally _fine_ if Dave stayed in Rose's room, he trusted her completely and he could tell that Dave was a good kid. Dave felt like a bad kid as he watched Rose's ass the whole way up the stairs. It wasn't about the fact that she'd gotten hot, he told himself, and it was the absolute truth, because he'd been sick in love with her for a long time before. Rose's foster dad was a dumbass, he privately thought, because they were fifteen and the two of them hooking up had been inevitable for just about forever, hadn't it?

Rose's room was practically wallpapered with those fuzzy velvet colouring book art prints. Rose -- or someone else -- had filled absolutely every single one of them with a rich spectrum of colour. Many had been edited with black marker to give them a more sinister tone. There was an air mattress already laid out on the floor. A stereo was playing some whiny goth punk quietly. The ceiling reminded Dave of when he was six and his foster mom had put up the glow in the dark stickers to entertain her bevy of fosterlings at night, only Rose's was all done in paint, once again in bright, rich colours highlighted with thick black. Dave's eyes were drawn to one corner, though, and his eyes went round.

"Holy fucking shit," he said. "You have a computer?"

Rose glanced at it. "An old Apple 2. It doesn't do much," she said. "But I can play Oregon Trail. That's something."

"Dude." He didn't know what else to say, because he just started getting frustrated. Did Rose not know how lucky she was? His own current foster parents hadn't even gotten him new clothes for the school year, just a quick trip to the ole Sally Ann. How could she be so flippant?

She looked at him and then looked away. She dropped onto her bed, blinking up at the ceiling. "I know what you're thinking," she said.

"You read minds now?"

"Only when they're obvious and easy to read." She sighed. "Look, Dave... I know I seem ungrateful. Things are just... weird, here. I'm grateful that the Forrests paid for you to come and visit. That's what matters, and if I could get a chance to see you out of this, it's all worth it. But... they're weird. Just... trust me, all right?"

He swallowed down something really unflattering. 'Weird' didn't mean shit. Before Child Protective Services had come, he'd had one foster mom who'd locked him in a closet when he didn't clear his plate. 'Weird' was a small price to pay for generous, caring people who gave you free computers and velvet posters to fill in.

He wouldn't put his foot in his mouth. He wouldn't let himself ruin this chance, these precious two weeks with Rose, to be with her, to talk to her, to see her, and to somehow show her that he wasn't still a shitty snot-nosed kid and was actually someone worthy of paying attention to.

He just kind of walked around the room, instead. Getting a sense of who Rose was, now. Connecting the changes in her-on-the-phone and her-in-her-letters to the her-in-the-flesh. A vase of black roses, all silk. Five rows of books in her bookshelf, mostly horror and fantasy. A long line of tapes filled with a bunch of longhaired British men who looked like women. Dave was a lot cuter than any of them. Definitely.

She had a cork board covered in photos. They were... really, really good. Black and white, mostly, with amazing composition and framing. The lines were crisp and the focus was all flawless. He felt a surge of jealousy. He'd started playing around with cameras himself, but he'd found it easier to take intentionally bad photos than good ones like this. Whenever he tried, all he could see were the flaws. It was a whole lot easier to "accidentally" put his forefinger in a shot of a troll doll's terrible hideous face and neon hair than it was to capture the way the wind danced in the chimes just outside his window.

Rose was in a lot of the pictures. Rose smiling, Rose laughing. Rose with her feet up on bleachers, reading a book. Rose holding all ten fingers up in front of her face, eyes large and heavy with makeup. Rose hunched over an ancient typewriter.

The photographer had just... frozen her in time. Like, her spirit, or something. They captured the essence of who Rose was. Full of life and intellect and confidence. Living always for herself, doing what she wanted, never falling over for anyone else. It was everything that he loved about her.

There was one of Rose with her arm around another girl her age, also wearing black lipstick and raccoon eyes and lace gloves. She had long dark hair and thick rimmed glasses. Rose was looking at her with this look in her eyes, something that he hadn't seen before, but...

Dave pulled the photo off the board. 

"Who's this?" he asked, showing her the photo.

She smiled. It was a tiny, shy little smile. It was a smile that wasn't meant for Dave. "Oh. Um, that's Cathy. She's the one who took all the photos. She's good, right?"

"Yeah," Dave said. "She's really good." Did his voice sound strangled, or did he just feel that way?

"I can't wait for you to meet her. She, um. She's my girlfriend."

  



	14. Made a Million Dollars

  


I'm lying on my back and looking up at the stars, only they're not the right stars.

My hands brush across soft grass heavy with dew. The night sings with something that isn't quite crickets. The moon hangs above the trees --

It's not the right moon, either.

It's all angry red and steel grey, and for a second I think, well, shit, this is it. A meteor is going to hit Earth and put us all out of our misery before the Empress can do anything. But it just hangs suspended like a moon is supposed to, and I feel... I feel a weird kind of... fondness for it?

"Dude," I hear my voice say, "I've gotta take you up there to see it."

I'm not alone. Someone close by my ear snorts quietly. "I've already seen it, you fucking nimrod. I watched your whole life on viewports, remember?"

"Well, yeah," I say. "But there's a difference between seeing it and _seeing it_ , right? Like, you gotta see the nakkodile stock market and the scratched Beat Mesa and some of the rad quest areas and shit."

"I've seen all that shit, you globe-fondling asshole! If you want to really wow me with some new and exciting romance, take me to Jane's moon, or something."

I'm laughing as I turn on my side, and my heart starts pounding, because the dude I'm flirting with -- isn't human. Blood red eyes look out at me from harshly yellow sclera from a grey face. There are horns and fangs and 

I

know him?

And love him.

"I'll fondle your globes, alright," I say, wiggling my eyebrows, and his eyes glimmer with amusement as he reaches for me. His hands are on my face and there are claws, too, but he's stroking my cheek so gently and I know him somewhere deep, I know him like he's a part of me, that missing piece I've always been looking for...

"Hey," he says, but his lips don't move.

I go to reply, but my lips won't move.

"Hey, asshole."

I blink. My eyes are sticky with sleep and the sun is fucking blasting down into my eyes and I groan and go to roll over and nearly fall onto the patio. "Whthfuck?" I groan. I raise a hand to shield my eyes from the sun and Karkat is looking down at me with his brow all furrowed and his eyes

A needle inside of me skips on a record and for a moment I feel like I'm understanding something for the first time, and then, just as quick, it's fucking gone, leaving me frustrated and thwarted and empty, like I'd just missed my connection to somewhere important, like two ships just passed in the night and I was supposed to change from one to the other and now my opportunity is gone.

"You snore when you sleep on your back," Karkat says.

"Cool," I say, voice still thick with sleep. I slowly remember that I was sitting by the pool, listening to some old tunes, debating getting in the water and shocking my system with the cold. I wanted some clarity, because I was trying to make a decision.

Oh.

"Are we going, or not?" Karkat asks impatiently. "Because if we're going, I really need to call Rose and explain. She's going to fucking tear me to pieces of she finds out from the tabloids."

It's December 12th and I've spent the last three days going back and forth on accepting an invite to a big Hollywood Christmas party. I've gone back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I've been pro-conning it in my head all day. It's come down to something like this:

Pros:

\- Literally anybody who's anybody is going to be there, full of Christmas gossip and all kinds of exciting scandal, so me being disgorged from my self imposed exile isn't going to be as big of news as it would be any other time.  
\- I've honestly felt a bit better every day since my total mental breakdown on the 1st and I think maybe I actually can handle it.  
\- I have to do it eventually.

Cons:

\- Fuck I don't fucking want to fuck fuck fuck.

"Ugh," I groan, and run a hand through my hair. I grab my shades off of the side table where I'd apparently put them like a dumbass when I started dozing and slide them onto my face. Immediately, it stops feeling like I'm being stabbed in the brain through my eyes. I should text Rose about this. Holy shit, Rose, I'm using sunglasses for their intended purpose.

My phone has fallen to the patio. Karkat produces it for me when I start fishing around for it. He hands it to me wordlessly, and I check my messages. A ton from my PA and my publicist, a couple from other Hollywood types.

One from Rose.

TT: Just so you know, Dave, I rejected an invitation to the party tonight. I won't be there, if that makes the decision you're doubtless labouring over any easier.  
  
It kind of just makes me feel shitty, because Rose loves Christmas and loves the glitz and glam and drama of Hollywood Christmas shindigs. She loves being a goddamn fantasy author who not only can rub elbows with movie stars, but is considered a sought after and valued guest at their parties. She loves that she's turned 'your weird gothy lesbian aunt who loves cats and Lovecraft' into an admired and imitated aesthetic. She's probably bummed as fuck that she's not there tonight.

And that decides me, I guess. I'm not saying the best reason to make a big decision is because you feel guilty. Just that knowing that Rose has begged off such a big occasion because she wants me to go overcomes some of my _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ and makes me feel like -- fuck it. Rip that band-aid off.

"Okay," I say, sitting up. "Okay. All right. We're gonna go."

For a second, Karkat looks terrified. He opens his mouth and I'm one hundred percent sure that he's going to start babbling about how utterly not ready he is to step into high society and stand in a room with people from his, I am learning, fucking embarrassing taste in movies. And it occurs to me that he's just a kid, a poor kid who'd been hooking in a party town before he'd gotten dragged all into my life, and this might be a little much for him.

So I go to tell him just like... hey, you don't have to come if you don't want, nobody is forcing you, if _you're_ not ready, then...

But he clamps his mouth shut, takes a deep breath that makes his shoulders heave and his ribcage puff out, and he squares his chin up real good. "Fine," he says. "Fuck. Finally. I've been in America almost a month and haven't eaten anything but fucking take-out." And he turns and storms off. I indulge myself with watching his butt. Fuck, it's a great butt.

I mess with my phone a bit. Looking at Karkat's butt immediately after reminding myself that he's probably still an overwhelmed kid in way over his head and I really still don't know dick about him has made my head buzz a bit. So I kind of turn him, butt and all, over and over in my head.

I realize with a jolt of surprise that I wouldn't fuck him.

Not that he's offering or anything, but if he did, which is absurd, he wouldn't, but if he _did_ , I wouldn't. I prod at that, trying to see if it's just me lying to myself, but it holds up.

With one glaring, painful, pulsing polyp of an exception, I actually generally... don't really have sex with people I actually like. The shrink Rose sent me to, the one that prescribed me my own murder weapon, said that I use frequent, almost compulsive sex as a way to desperately seek out intimacy, but my own attempts to connect are thwarted by my fear of opening up. That sounds pretty much accurate. He's a good shrink, after all. It's not his fault that I hate talking about myself so much that I closed up like an angry clam. Which is pretty funny, actually, since he also says that I long for real closeness but actively shut people out. Thanks for your insights, doc, now watch that shit _in action_ , motherfucker. 

So. Like. With that one painful pus-filled gaping wound of an exception, I guess I generally kind of avoid getting involved with anyone I actually care about. Because God fucking knows, I guess, that if I let them see enough of the hilarious swirling abyss of Strider in my head, which is just inevitable if I let them past the gates...

I don't know.

They'll see just how whack this shit is and get right the fuck out of there.

So. Is that why I wouldn't fuck Karkat?

I'm not sure. Kind of, maybe, but... not quite. It doesn't feel quite right. I mean, after all, he's definitely seen how low I can go. How amazingly skilled I am at limboing under the bar of self respect to punch myself in the nads. There aren't really any new depths the guy can see me fall to.

There's something more to it than that, but I can't place it. I want him to like me. I really... enjoy some of the time we spend together. He's been a good companion. I'm glad he's been here. He's kept me alive. And I'm a dirty old man and think that he's a fucking ten.

But I wouldn't fuck him.

That sticks with me as I call my PA. He sounds flustered and shocked to hear from me. I tell him to send a limo. I call the guy at the gate and tell him to let them up. If I'm going out, I'm doing it big. Also, if there's a limo waiting in front of my fucking door, I'm way less likely to wimp the fuck out again.

Then I text Rose.

TG: yeah  
TG: thats cool  
TG: i decided to go  
TT: Oh, Dave. That's wonderful!  
TG: its ok sure  
TT: I'm sure you'll have a lovely time.  
TG: actually im pretty sure im gonna regret it like fuck but hey thanks for the well wishes there captain optimism  
TT: Optimism.  
TT: Well.  
TT: That's certainly nothing I've ever been accused of before.  
TG: you shouldnt have cancelled dude  
TG: i know you love this shit  
TT: I do love this shit, but I love you more.  
TT: I  
TT: I'm sorry, I misspoke.  
TT: What I mean is  
TG: rose  
TG: its cool  
TG: i know what you mean  
TG: i love you too ok  
TT: Please, try and enjoy yourself.  
TT: And, if I may suggest, don't indulge in any of your favoured substances?  
TG: haha ok  
TG: i will be as sober as a maiden aunt  
TG: a really boring one  
TG: and by sober i mean no drugs because fuck if im getting through a dumb fucking hollywood party without alcohol  
TT: Oh, dear.  
TT: Well, I look forward to reading about your adventures dancing on tables in tomorrow's headlines.  
TG: cool  
TG: gonna go do my hair and shit so the embarrassing photos look cute bbl  
  
I put my phone in my pocket, but it buzzes again on my way into the house.

TT: You sound better.  
TT: I'm glad.  
  
A little smile flutters across my lips. Yeah. Well. I feel better. I do. Not better as in "I feel better!" like everything is cool. But better as in "I felt like a steaming pile of hot garbage and now I feel like the garbage has maybe cooled somewhat and stopped letting off that fucking stench."

And better is better.

Karkat doesn't have anything nice to wear. He's too petite to borrow anything of mine; he'd look like a kid dressed in its dad's clothes, which is a really awkward thought considering that I've put my tongue in his mouth, so I swerve hard. What Karkat does have is natural good looks. Like. Damn, he's fucking cute. I call my PA and ask him to bring by a few pairs of designs jeans and some casual-chic style tees, all in smalls. There isn't enough time to tailor him anything, but I think he could pull off that casual-chic look really good. I hope he doesn't take offense to charity. I just don't want him to be embarrassed in his ratty old clothes or his raver/hooker gear at a nice party.

I think about that while the showerhead blasts my back. I don't want him to be embarrassed. I don't care about what I look like being seen with him. I just want him to be, you know. Comfortable. I rinse my hair and think about that. I get distracted thinking about it. About Karkat. About how... nice it's been, having the same person around me every single day, about how there's no bullshit between us, about how he gets that little line between his eyebrows, about how fucking dazzling his smile is, about how he has never once said something fake to impress me...

The water runs cold. I hear a yelp and then an absolute fucking _tirade_ go on all the way from the other bathroom. I'm laughing to myself when I shut the water off.

I don't actually meet my PA at the door for the clothes. I'm going to face everyone in a few hours, but I want to just... wait until I'm ready. Do it all at once. Karkat gets it instead, and comes into my room -- our room, I guess, because he's still sleeping on the futon, which is now practically a fucking chenille nest -- with a huge load of clothes in his arms and a grimace on his face.

"None of this is going to fit," he complains, looking it over. "Clothes never fucking fit me."

"Okay," I say. "But. You can't exactly wear short shorts and nipple shirts to a party."

"Shut your impudent fucking mouth!" Karkat snaps, and he's blushing very charmingly. "I didn't bring that shit with me, anyway! It was work clothes, okay?"

I turn away while he tries shit on. I hear cloth sliding over his skin, and the temptation to look is pretty strong. The fact that I wouldn't fuck him doesn't mean that I'm not attracted to him. Not at all. It's not the same kind of attraction that I felt that day on the boardwalk when we met, all hazy-brain and thumping-heart and rock-hard-cock. It's softer. And stronger.

And I don't like thinking about it, in all honesty, especially not when he's changing right behind me, so I clear my throat and just talk so that words are happening instead of the parade of naked Karkats in my head.

"How did you get in that line of work, anyway?"

Damn. Could there possibly be any less appropriate question?

"That's none of your fucking business," Karkat snaps. I can't even be offended, because it's true. I'm so curious it burns, and get more curious every day, because Karkat is smart and shockingly good with people and if it were just about money, how did he get from Morocco to Ibiza? But that's his story, not mine. And I know all about stories that you'd rather not tell.

But that gives me an idea. "Uh, sorry," I say. I straighten my tie to give myself something to do. "Here, you can ask me anything and I'll answer. Make up for it."

I expect him to say something like _fuck you, what would I want to know about you, anyway?_ But to my surprise, he immediately comes out with something, as if it were just waiting in the chamber for an excuse for him to get the shot off.

"What happened with you and Rose before you came to Ibiza?"

My heart seizes up. I remember her lips under mine, her hair fine and soft between my fingers, her body warm and real against me. "Anything but that," I say, sounding strangled. That night -- I can't share that with anyone. Not the fiery passion, not the crushing guilt, not how much I'd wanted to believe that she and I were finally connecting the way we were always meant to, and not how much I fucking hated myself for being weak enough to go there.

Karkat sighs. "Fine." After a pause, and the sound of fabric moving, and me trying not to picture his nut-brown skin and failing, he says, "Your wikipedia page says you grew up in Texas. It doesn't say anything about your family."

Hah. He's google spying on me. I find that kind of... charming? Nice. Like... damn, Karkat, you care about me enough to type 'Dave Strider' into a search engine and hit the enter key and _click on the results_. You really do care.

"Yeah," I say. I've kept a real tight lid on my past, but... sure. I know Karkat doesn't have a mother, at least. He let that slip on the day we got here. So... what can it hurt, opening up just a crack? "Don't have one. Family, that is. And I don't mean like, oh they all died tragically or whatever. As far as I or anyone else knows, I just plain haven't got one."

"Oh," he says.

"Yeah," I say. "Nobody's ever been able to tell me dick about them. And I mean -- I've tried. Gave it the old college try, assuming college is pouring millions of fucking dollars into DNA testing and whatnot, which I think it probably isn't, so I guess I gave it the old bored, unfulfilled billionaire try, instead. We turned up some boring ass stuff, like... parents were both white, for instance. One hundred percent whitey up in here, that's me. Mayonnaise king. One of them was a redhead and one was a blonde. They think my dad was even taller than I am. No genetic disorders, which is nice." I shake my head. "But fucking _nothing_ that could help me find them. No similar genomes logged anywhere. No potential cousins... no potential ancestors... fucking nothing." I sigh. "Big waste of a couple million bucks."

"Fucking geez," Karkat says. And then, more quietly, "Uh, if it makes you... I don't know, I just... I'm the same, actually. No million dollar genome bullshit, we're not all fucking swimming around in gold like Scrooge fucking McDuck, you privileged fucking dickbrain. But... you know, no family. No idea of who they might be. Just a big question mark."

I close my eyes. I try not to get all worked up about that. I try not to feel like I've found another of my kind, another person like me and Rose. I swallow. I open my mouth to get all fucking sappy.

"Okay." Karkat fills the silence before I can embarrass myself. "I think this shit fits. You can turn around."

I do.

And holy shit.

The jeans fit like a second skin, and the tee is just loose enough to emphasize how adorably tiny he is. I swallow hard.

So. Okay.

Maybe I'd fuck him, after all?

"Shit," I say. "The rags are gonna have a fucking _field day_ with you."

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors note: My apologies for falling behind on the posting of this. Regular posting will resume Saturday! I've been away at conventions so I have been unable to be at my PC to update. <3


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